Operation Rosary
by JaganshiKenshin
Summary: An agent has gone missing! But when Ueda Issei meets his new partner, his reaction is one of dismay. Will Hiei manage to get them both killed or will they complete the mission?
1. OR C1: Bond James Bond

Disclaimer: Kenshin does not own the Yuu Yuu Hakusho characters (they are the property of Togashi Yoshihiro et al), and does not make any money from said characters. Don't sue.

What Kenshin does own, however, are all the original characters ---human, demon, or other---in this work. Any attempt to "borrow" these characters will be met with the katana, or worse.

The events in _Idiot Beloved_ take place shortly after the Dark Tournament; _Firebird Sweet_ directly follows that timeline, and occur shortly before the acquisition of _Tenchi no Hi_. You will probably get more out of this sidefic if you do read _IB_ and its sequel first.

Title: Operation Rosary C1: "Bond? James Bond?"

Author: JaganshiKenshin

Genre: Action/Adventure, General

Rating: G/PG-13

Summary: Why is The Agency teaming Ueda Issei with this rebellious, runty little jerk?

A/N: Every now and then, I like portraying Hiei through the eyes of someone who has never met him. For this story, I wanted a secret agent motif, seeing as how Shay-san rather jokingly tagged Hiei as 'a Japanese James Bond' on their first meeting.

_Operation Rosary_ is told mostly through the viewpoint of Hiei's 'partner.' The burnt-out doll factory of _Two Shots_ (YYH manga, Vol. 7) is the main setting. And as to whether the Agency does, in fact, exist---well, if I told you, Hiei would have to kill you.

"What kind of gun is that?"

Operation Rosary (C1: "Bond? James Bond?")

by

Kenshin

Ueda Issei thought the guy they'd teamed him with was an arrogant runt---and likely to get him killed.

But Issei prided himself on a brand of professionalism that would not allow mere personal feelings to interfere with his duties.

And he had to be at his best. One of the Agency's men was missing.

In the unlikely event that an outsider should stumble upon the Agency, he would encounter what appeared to be a small electronics firm---Yoshikawa Industries, on the tenth floor of a high-rise in the Shibuya ward---but that was mere surface gloss.

While Issei could appreciate the outer office, his true appreciation was reserved for Miss Sakamoto Emi, sleek blonde secretary to Chief of Ops Mr. Narita Shun. But Miss Sakamoto scarcely paid Issei more attention than she paid the alcove in the right corner of the room, with its raku vase (today holding a single fiery sprig of chrysanthemum that was also a recording device). Maybe she was taking this secrecy thing too far.

"Yoshikawa Industries" seemed far more secretive than the USA's National Security Agency. When Issei had said as much to Miss Sakamoto not five minutes ago, she raised her violet eyes to him and retorted, "At least people have _heard_ of the NSA."

And with that she'd ushered Issei into N's office (everyone referred to Narita Shun as 'N,' even Issei in greeting the bland-featured, somewhat portly chief).

N sat at his black lacquer desk, while the vast window at his back offered a glowering view of Tokyo on this cloudy October afternoon.

But although N nodded a return greeting at Issei, the new teammate gave no sign of acknowledgment. Instead, he looked almost asleep: arms folded, lounging with one hip against the edge of the desk. Maybe a good dose of ephedra tea would keep his eyes open.

Only when Issei was all but standing on top of them did the freelancer deign to take notice.

The tip of his spiked black hair came up only to Issei's chin, and the eyes that examined Issei were half-lidded, as though it was too much trouble to open them all the way. In addition to their slightly mocking quality, the eyes were a suspicious crimson hue. He was dressed disgracefully, too: pretentious samurai headband, loose black pants with numerous deep pockets, and a loose black jersey that buttoned at the neck. Compared to the well-mannered, middle-aged N, he looked like a kid. But then so did Issei---just not a punk kid.

They had never met---but Issei felt there was something naggingly familiar about him.

N introduced him as Hiei. He had no business card.

While N poured tea, they got their briefing, and brief it was. Yesterday, the Agency had sent Operative X to investigate a burnt-out doll factory on the outskirts of town. Operative X had never returned.

In all of Issei's 4 years with the Agency (he'd started at age 20) such an event had never occurred. Men had been killed in the line of duty, true. But none had simply vanished. Issei suspected X was already dead, and that this was more a recovery operation than a rescue.

"Time's a factor?" Rising, Hiei thrust his hands in his pockets. It was the first he'd spoken since Issei came in; he had an impressive voice for such a small creature, deep, smooth, and cultured, but it also carried an undertone of laziness.

N nodded. "I wish it could wait until morning, but---"

"That's everything?" Hiei interrupted.

N assured him it was. And without further word, Hiei turned his back on them and left the office.

Issei remained, staring at the door in disbelief. No one walked out on N with such little regard for propriety. "Sir," Issei protested, "This guy---"

N held up a hand, and Issei fell silent. "This guy, as you put it, is the best there is at a certain kind of operation. We're lucky to get him. He's on loan from elsewhere, although he's worked for us a time or two before."

_Oh? Why wasn't I informed?_

N pushed the tea tray aside, folded his hands on the table, then gave Issei a stringent look. "You'd better hurry if you want to catch up with him. I don't know whether to congratulate you---or pray for you."

_How encouraging._ Licking dry lips, Issei took his leave of N, then ran to make sure this oddball partner at least held the elevator for him.

0-0-0-0-0

Darkness falls early in autumn; by the time Ueda Issei turned into the factory's driveway, the sky was a deep steel-blue, painted with streaks of crimson and gold behind the black backdrop of trees.

His new partner moved with an economical precision, and spoke even less. In fact the freelancer hadn't uttered a single word on the drive, which was just fine with Issei. Hiei appeared, as in the office, to be asleep: eyes shut, arms crossed over his chest, head tilted forward.

_Maybe instead of ephedra he needs St. John's Wort, or a B-complex, or both. Or maybe just a swift kick_.

But as Issei threaded the car down the winding, overgrown driveway, the freelancer sat up and spoke.

"Stop here."

Issei applied the brakes. From this vantage point, about halfway down the drive, there was a good view of the factory.

In its heyday of the 1960s, and even well into the 80s, the Minoru Dollworks had supplied retailers all over Japan with dolls and mannequins. Now the two-story rectangle stood pale and ghostly in the dying light, scorch marks round its windows painting a black Rorschach on the walls. A tiny third story, probably housing what had once been the executive suite, stuck out like a turret from the middle of the flat roofline.

Echoes of expensive landscaping were still evident in two asymmetrical stands of trees and bushes near the factory entrance. A perfect hiding place for wrongdoers. Issei's lips thinned in distaste at the sight of what had been order, tumbling to chaos.

What Hiei thought of the factory was anyone's guess.

Then he turned to study Issei. The scrutiny took so long that Issei had to suppress the desire to squirm like a schoolboy. "Apart from the hair," Hiei began.

Issei brushed a self-conscious hand against his buzz-cut. "What about the hair?"

"Not that you look like him, but apart from the hair, you remind me a little of someone I know."

"Who?"

"Urameshi Yuusuke. Same size, similar build. Let's hope you're made of the same stuff."

"And what 'stuff' would that be?"

Hiei gave him a smirk. "Urameshi once billed himself as the number-one thug at Sarayashiki Junior High."

"Ever consider high doses of valerian root?"

"Never touch it." Hiei put out a hand to stop Issei from leaving the car. "You dressed?"

Crimping his mouth again, Issei nodded. Outsiders sounded like fools when they peppered their talk with what they thought was Agency jargon. Nevertheless, with a flick of his hand he parted his jacket, revealing the Walther PPK nestled in the pancake holster on his right side.

"A _James Bond_ gun?" Hiei's voice scaled up a notch.

Issei stiffened. "Which has a long and honorable history. This model's perfect for deep concealment. It's got a double-action trigger mechanism and a fixed barrel that also acts as the guide rod for the recoil spring---"

"And only six rounds," Hiei interrupted. "Not enough."

"I have three spare magazines," Issei snapped.

"Same difference." Hiei shrugged.

"And a brown belt in Karate."

"That and fifty yen'll get you some tako yaki."

"Any .38 has excellent stopping power in close quarters---"

"Yeah, yeah," Hiei interrupted. "My wife's the gunslinger, not me. You two should talk shop someday---if you make it out alive."

No one else had ever succeeded in getting under his skin on such short acquaintance. Issei's reserve toward his new partner blossomed into full-scale dislike. "And you're armed with?..."

Without responding, Hiei got out. Slipping through the bushes like a hunting cat, he left Issei to lock up.

0-0-0-0-0

A cursory inspection of the grounds yielded nothing conclusive. They entered by what was left of the front door. The masonry building would not have burned easily, but its interior would have offered plenty of fuel for hungry flames. Inside, the factory smelled like melted plastic and charred upholstery, with a faint but unpleasant tang of mold. The walls on the ground floor were soot-black, and any light leaking in from the broken-out windows did not illuminate so much as conceal. Yet Hiei led the way as though it was high noon.

"What do you know of Operative X?" Hiei's voice was difficult to hear with debris crunching underfoot.

"Why? Didn't N brief you?"

"I'm asking _you_."

"I never met him," Issei admitted. "But he was investigating the theft of---"

"Age 35, single, five-ten, brown and blue, 190 pounds of solid muscle with a third-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, studied particle physics at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. Any speculations why someone with his pedigree was sent to a place like this?"

"As I was saying before you interrupted, this operative was investigating the theft of 12 grams of Moolooite from the Iniushi chemical supply house two miles from here---all they had." The stolen crystal would be about the size and shape of a pencil. Moolooite, a rare blue-green mineral discovered in Australia, was originally employed as the coherent light generator in high-power X-ray laser weapons. Its other uses remained to be seen.

"Ahh!" Interest sparked the lazy voice. "Moolooite---the stuff they find in bat crap?"

Issei nodded in distaste, though what Hiei said was essentially true; Moolooite _was_ formed by the interaction of bat guano with copper sulfides.

"And who might be interested in stealing that amount of---"

"I suppose you can tell me?" Issei said sarcastically.

"Matter of fact," began Hiei, "I can." But instead of supplying an answer, he took a long breath, slowed his pace, and lowered his voice almost to a whisper. "Something's not right."

"What's not?" Instantly, Issei was on alert.

"Not sure. Goes beyond the usual feeling of desolation and impending danger you get when you're inside an abandoned, burnt-out factory. Way beyond that."

This was by far the longest speech Hiei had made in their short acquaintance, possibly the longest speech he had ever made in his life. "And you know this because---?"

"Been here before. I know what this place should feel like. Then there's the matter of my---" Hiei halted. Issei almost ran into him.

The lights snapped on, revealing a yawning cavern of soot and wreckage, held up by steel I-beams at regular intervals. Doll parts littered the floor, uncomfortably bringing to mind bodies left after a holocaust.

The lights also revealed they were not alone.

Whatever Issei was expecting, this wasn't it. He moved shoulder-to-shoulder with Hiei.

Much of his Agency work consisted of tedium---gathering data, keeping a log book on the activities of a target, passing information to key operatives via dead drops or courier. He had been in two shoot-outs, both of which had resulted in no deaths and the immediate surrender of the target. His training included simple coding technique, such as mid-null and sandwich, plus covert observation and diversionary tactics. He was never without his gun. In short, Ueda Issei was well-versed in Agency protocol and self-defense both.

But nothing could have prepared him for the sight that greeted him now: six creatures, the likes of which Ueda Issei had never seen, even in his worst dreams.

One of them---leaning against the far wall---appeared human enough: a trim and dapper man in a gray double-breasted suit. His hair expertly trimmed, his shoes polished, he could have been a top executive at any Nikkei Exchange company.

Except that his skin was celery green, and his ears swept backward into elegant cat-points.

The one at his side, though less expensively dressed, also looked human---if you ignored the lavender skin, or the fact that he had four rather long arms that reached almost to the floor.

But there was no way the remaining three could be considered human.

Arrayed in front of the suit as if they were his bodyguards, each creature was worse than the next. The first resembled the evil oni of Issei's favorite childhood tale, _Momotaro the Peach Boy_ in that he was a brown-hued seven-footer wearing tiger skins, balancing a thorny club across his massive shoulder.

Another was a ten-foot minotaur, half man, half bull. Its powerful human arms and shining black hide made it menacing for all that it had a silly little ring in its bull's nose.

The fifth monster had a shaggy teardrop-shaped body, two stumpy legs, and arms almost as long as the lavender creature's. Its fur was the color of urine and it had a single orange eye in the middle of its otherwise-featureless face. It stank of wet dog, and its hands ended in three fingers.

The sixth and last creature was gray-skinned, about Hiei's height, and also human in shape. Except that its bowling-ball head sported a vertical, fanged mouth just above its eyes. Eight of them, round and milky and blind-looking.

The moment of discovery had taken ten heartbeats, maybe less. Hiei broke the silence. "D-class nonentities," he said, walking toward them, hands twitching like a gunslinger's, hovering just above his pockets.

"Who you callin' a nonentity, runt?" The oni swung its club, speaking in the most abrupt, impolite strata.

"Think you can take me?" said Hiei. "Go ahead on."

Indeed the entire scene had the flavor of an old Western movie, with the Marshall squaring off against a gang of cattle rustlers. Perhaps Hiei carried in those voluminous pockets some form of firepower, preferably an AK-47. "Nonentities, except for the suit," Hiei amended. "Still, I should be able to handle---"

"Think again," growled the oni, and Issei detected a sudden, unpleasant shift in the air, without being sure how he knew this.

"Get out while you can," warned Hiei, and he was not addressing the oni.

"Not on your life," said Issei.

"It may come to that," Hiei retorted.

"My, my," sighed Gray Suit, buffing his nails on his lapels. He spoke in an affected, drawling voice that made Issei want to empty an entire magazine into his mouth, if only to shut him up. "Unexpected guests!" he simpered. "And I'm afraid you've caught us without anything to offer you---not even a cup of tea."

"That's okay," said Hiei, never taking his eyes off the leader. "We had our tea before."

"Don't let him reach into his pockets!" commanded Gray Suit, and even before the words left his mouth, the four-armed creature at his side responded. All four arms shot toward them, stretching like bungee cords, binding Hiei's hands.

It had happened so fast that Issei could barely see the motion. Bracing himself against an I-beam, he fired at the creature nonetheless---and missed.

Ignoring Issei, the remaining monsters flung themselves upon Hiei. Fearful of hitting his own man now, Issei hesitated to target Four-Arms again.

Even bound, Hiei fought like a wolverine, a whirlwind of feet and knees and, yes, teeth. It would have made Issei's old Karate master proud. But such lightning movement also meant Hiei was in and out of the line of fire.

He had to risk it. Issei pumped rounds into the creatures, using a two-handed grip, scoring hits more than once. The gunfire didn't even slow them down.

_I know what will_. Swiveling, his Walther PPK in the lead, Issei aimed at the leader---

"Oh, dear," Gray Suit tsk'd. "I _do_ so hate violence."

In a flash, Four-arms released one arm to wrench the gun from Issei's hands and fling it away. _Disarmed!_

Issei dove for the gun, but Four-arms blasted him with a casual backhand swat that sent him rolling. Issei managed to stop the momentum, then struggled to his feet.

Hiei battled on, beating his five attackers back a time or two despite being bound, putting up an impressive fight for such a little guy---hell, for anyone. More than once the minotaur growled in pain, and Eight-Eyes cursed fluently in a language Issei had never heard.

The scuffle stopped. Hiei stood, teeth bared. There was a brief stillness, almost a standoff, as though the monsters had their doubts about the battle's outcome. Then, oni, minotaur, and eye monsters closed in.

"Get out!" Hiei commanded, turning his head, seeking Issei, but that moment of distraction cost him dearly. The big brown oni swung its thorny club, connected a solid blow that took Hiei amidships.

Hiei flew back, slamming into the minotaur. "Gotcha!" it crowed. Holding fast, its bovine mouth trickling blood from Hiei's previous attacks, it growled, "I owe you for that. Who else wants in on the fun?"

Everyone.

The creatures poured themselves onto Hiei. Appalled, Issei waded in, fists flying. Hiei landed a solid kick to the cyclops, sent it reeling back. Issei struck, connected. The cyclops felt like a sack of wet cement; it not only stank like a dog, it howled like one.

"Oh, no, you don't," said the suit, and Four-Arms responded. He released two of his arms from Hiei, pinning Issei with a power that felt like the crushing coils of a big python.

He lashed out with one foot, overbalanced, fell, scrambled upright again in spite of Four-Arms and his grip. Maybe this wasn't such a one-sided battle. If Hiei could manage to---

But the sheer number of foes overwhelmed Hiei at last. With Four-Arms holding Hiei and Issei both, the others systematically beat Hiei unconscious.

It took an appallingly long time to do so. At last Four-Arms released Hiei to the minotaur altogether.

Face bloodied, hanging like a rag doll from the minotaur's massive hand, Hiei stopped fighting at last.

"One down," warbled the suit. His eyes sought Issei's, locked gazes. "One to go."

Laughing, the other monsters abandoned the fallen Hiei---to turn on Issei.

(To be continued---"Where are we?")

-30-


	2. OR C2: Down In The Dungeon

Please see Disclaimer in Chapter 1.

The events in _Idiot Beloved_ take place shortly after the Dark Tournament; _Firebird Sweet_ directly follows that timeline, and you can probably get more out of this sidefic if you read IB and its sequel first.

Title: Operation Rosary C2: Down In The Dungeon

Author: JaganshiKenshin

Genre: Action/Adventure, General

Rating: K+/PG-13

Summary: Bound hand and foot, neither Issei nor Hiei seems likely to escape.

A/N: **C1 has been totally re-furbished as of now**! _Operation Rosary_ is told through the viewpoint of Hiei's 'partner,' who has never met him till now---yet discovers a nagging familiarity. The burnt-out factory of _Two Shots_ (YYH manga, Vol. 7) is the main setting. And as to whether the Agency does, in fact, exist---well, if I told you, Hiei would have to kill you.

"I want my Rosary back!"

Operation Rosary (C2: Down In The Dungeon)

by

Kenshin

As dungeons went, this one seemed seemed more cheerful than most.

Ueda Issei tried to calculate how much time had passed since he'd regained consciousness, shackled to a cinderblock wall.

He tried timing the throbbing pains in the back of his head but there was, of course, no real way of telling.

One thing was certain---James Bond would never find himself in a situation like this. The legendary 007 would carry some secret explosive device disguised as a harmless cuff link, automatically activated by measuring his galvanic skin response.

But no matter how hard he tried, Ueda Issei was no James Bond.

For one thing, unlike 007, Issei drove no flashy sports car, but an Agency-issue Toyota Corolla. And he was not exactly a success with women---as Miss Sakamoto's amused, distant attitude toward him revealed all too well.

Though he didn't want hundreds of women giddily flinging themselves at him; only Miss Sakamoto, and maybe not even giddily flinging. Just a normal sign of interest would be nice.

Nor was he any Funakoshi Gichin, founder of Shokotan Karate, who had said, "In time of grave public crisis, one must have courage.... to face a million and one opponents."

That little freelancer Hiei far better embodied such ideals. A million and one opponents, and Hiei had almost beaten them.

_Stop feeling sorry for yourself and snap out of it!_

Issei studied the room for the umpteenth time, seeking an escape route. Some 15 feet wide and 25 long, its walls were painted a chalky, hospital green. Linoleum of almost the same hue, enlivened by streaks of white, gray and rust, covered the floor. There wasn't so much as a stick of furniture. And rather than smoking torches, illumination came from a flickering fluorescent panel set flush into the low, water-stained ceiling.

The ceiling itself was comprised of acoustic tiles held in place by a gridwork of metal lath.

A heavy steel door was set in the wall tantalizingly close to Issei. With its small, dirty pane of wired safety glass, the door did not seem to be the room's weak point.

In all, his prison resembled nothing so much as a basement in a low-rent meeting hall. It was a dungeon nonetheless, if only by virtue of the shackles holding him captive.

The cuffs encircling Issei's wrists and ankles felt strong enough to hold an elephant, and were attached to heavy chains about eighteen inches in length, far too short to allow a stroll to the door, as he'd already learned. The chains were coupled with iron plates bolted to the cinderblock walls.

Issei had tried to free himself when he first awakened, jerking his arms forward, testing the strength of the chains and cuffs, until the flesh of his wrists began to bleed. The leg cuffs were every bit as unyielding.

Shackled to the wall opposite Issei, Hiei looked dead.

Suspended by both arms, his head hanging forward, only the barely-detectible rise and fall of Hiei's chest told Issei the tough little freelancer was still alive. Even then, from this distance, it was hard to tell. He did not respond to his name.

_Why did they send Operative X?_ Hiei had asked.

Issei could think of a few reasons, all of which made him uneasy. Particle physics and this dirty, burnt-out factory did not seem like a natural pair at first glance. But instinct, coupled with the theft of the Moolooite crystal, told him there was something here far worse than his usual caseload of drug smuggling and industrial trafficking.

There was also the matter of that odd shift in the air, just before the monsters attacked. Perhaps there had been no monsters. Perhaps they had been subjected to a new weapon capable of producing hallucinations.

He called out to Hiei again. No response.

Issei's toes just touched the floor, and his shoulders ached from the pull; he could imagine how much more painful it would feel for the smaller man, whose entire weight hung. And Hiei had taken far more damage than Issei.

_Why didn't they just kill us outright? And what about that shift in the air---similar to how the atmosphere gets charged before a storm... if they're testing an hallucinatory weapon..._

When Hiei finally came to, he simply raised his head. In spite of a bruised and bloodied face, he showed no signs of confusion, regarding Issei with oddly alert crimson eyes---again giving Issei the nagging sensation he'd seen him before.

Dismissing their prison with a single scornful glance, Hiei said, "Priceless. They ought to rent this out as a movie set." Then he turned his head and spat blood on the floor.

"I should have been prepared for this," Issei admitted.

"And I should have been able to handle those guys."

"With all due respect, 'those guys'---"

"Were nothing but thugs. Redshirts. D-class---" Hiei broke off, and Issei had the feeling that he had checked himself from saying anything further.

Issei went on. "Four-Arms moved too fast for anyone to see, let alone react."

"Not too fast for me. Told you, something's wrong." Then, still dangling in the air, Hiei slid his left foot up the wall, bending at the knee so he could brace the flat of his foot against the wall. Raising his right leg, he gave the shackle an experimental tug.

Flexible he might be, but with his smaller size and lighter weight... "No use," Issei began. "I've already---"

With a single vicious kick, Hiei popped the chain from the wall plate.

Astounded, Issei stared in silence.

Hiei liberated his left leg in the same manner. Then, grasping the wrist chains like he was an Olympic gymnast, Hiei used them as leverage to inch up the wall until he had enough slack to wrap the chains around his hands.

"Stupid _youkai_," Hiei muttered, then ripped the right-hand chain from the wall. The action caused him considerable damage. "Don't they even do their homework?"

"_Youkai?_ So it wasn't just an hallucination? Those creatures that attacked us---"

"Not human," replied Hiei, popping his left-hand chain free. He tumbled to the floor, then rose, brushed dust from his pants. "Your turn," he added, as casually as though he were announcing a new round in a game of Go.

"But I can't---I mean, I already tried---"

"Yeah, yeah." Walking over to Issei, Hiei freed his partner just as he had freed himself. Up close, Issei could see the damage those chains had inflicted, in the form of brutal red stamps upon Hiei's flesh.

"Your hands," Issei began.

"What?" Scowling, Hiei rattled the chains still dangling from Issei's legs. "Best I can do. How are you at dragging chains around?"

"They're bleeding," finished Issei.

"The chains?"

"Your hands."

"Ch," Hiei snorted.

Issei untucked his pristine white shirt, then, somewhat hampered by the chains, tore strips from the shirttail and helped his impatient partner bandage his torn hands.

When the job was finished, Issei patted himself down, while Hiei rummaged in his own pockets, muttering, "Didn't leave me with anything. Not even the phone. Took my sword, too."

"Sword? Where was---"

"I'm guessing your gun's gone."

"Gun, mags, holster," Issei agreed. "Even my echinacea."

"They took your echinacea?"

Issei nodded. "And my vitamin C."

"Your vitamin C? Now we're really screwed."

"Look on the bright side. We're dragging chains."

"That's the spirit," quipped Hiei.

"Maybe we can pass ourselves off as ghosts." Then, all too casually, Issei asked, "You were also carrying ...?"

"Holy Water," Hiei grumbled. "Holy Salt." He dug into his shirt and pulled out a string of brown wooden beads. Issei recognized it as a Rosary. The figure of Christ had the dull gray luster of pewter.

"Damn. I suspected as much, but until now---" Slipping it off, Hiei examined the Rosary in minute detail, as though he had never seen it before. Then he muttered a curse.

Issei stood very still. "What's wrong?"

With a calm far more terrifying than rage, Hiei raised his head. "This isn't my Rosary."

Issei slowly flexed his numbed shoulders, stalling. "How do you know it's not?"

"Mine's handmade. Many of the beads are slightly differing sizes, something that would escape the casual observer. Some have been drilled off-center. Look." Hiei thrust the beads up into Issei's face; Issei flinched. "See the fourth Our Father bead? Strung perfectly straight."

"I don't understand what that---"

"This Rosary was machine-made. Every bead the same size, every one drilled straight through the center, every one perfectly aligned."

"Oh?" Issei tried to rub life back into his tingling ankles. The fluorescent light made his hands look greenish-pale and sickly. "But how did you know before you examined---"

"Let's just say I know. And so does the enemy."

Issei's mouth felt like cotton. "Know what?"

"For one, a Rosary's just a string of beads until it's blessed by a priest. Then it becomes a weapon."

"And---for another?"

"For another, the light."

"The light?" Issei said blankly.

"The very fact that you have to ask means you can't see it." Hiei raked the room with an impatient glance. "I want that Rosary back. It was a gift from Shay-san, and it was given to _her_ by her uncle who---well. The odds will never get any better than this. Let's go."

Issei remained in the middle of the room, watching Hiei prowl. "Where?"

"To get my Rosary." Hiei stood before the heavy door, tried its metal handle, then shook his head. "Not this way, though. In my condition, I'd never---"

"I didn't realize."

The set of Hiei's shoulders changed, subtly. Afterward, Issei supposed that he should have been prepared for what happened next as well.

The attack was so quick that Issei never saw it coming. Hiei slammed him to the far wall, one hand clenched around his throat. Issei thought, crazily: _His bandages will come loose_.

Powerful fingers dug into his windpipe, and then Ueda Issei did fight, with every trick he had up his karate-trained sleeve, and a few he didn't, punching, clawing, kicking. He struck with the chains, kneed Hiei in the groin, but his blows had as much effect as the flutter of insect wings. Hiei simply tightened his fingers around Issei's throat.

Issei was blacking out. He could tell; the Agency tested their operatives to their very limits. Sliding down the wall, Issei gagged, coughed, sought desperately for air, but the hand around his throat was like another shackle.

"You took the Rosary, didn't you."

Issei gave a single curt nod.

"Tell me one thing, before I snap your neck. How long have you been working for the enemy?"

"Never," Issei rasped. Hiei's grip slackened, just enough for Issei to draw another painful breath. "No... choice... they'd have... killed me. Mission... scrapped!"

Hiei let go. Issei slid to the floor, coughing.

And then Hiei was hauling him to his feet, surprisingly careful to touch only his arms, not his raw, cuffed wrists. "They could have killed you anyway. No idea why they didn't."

"I--didn't realize," Issei gasped. "They never said it was a weapon. I thought it was just beads. Harmless beads."

"Yeah. Keep telling yourself that," retorted Hiei. He still sounded angry, but not murderous. And he had one or two more bloodied bruises, courtesy of his own man. "I know one thing. You're no Urameshi Yuusuke."

"A high school delinquent? You got that right."

"Urameshi's only the toughest bastard I ever met."

Issei adjusted his jacket, tucking in the tatters of his shirttails. He shut his eyes. His tattered image would not be so easily repaired.

Even with eyes closed, Issei could see it: Hiei, falling to the floor like a bloodied sack of grain. The monsters advancing. Four-Arms scooping up the Walther PPK, dropping it into Eight-Eyes' grip. Eight-Eyes gloating at him, aiming: "With all these peepers ain't no way I'm gonna miss." Gray Suit adding, "If you would be so kind as to remove your friend's necklace and place it on the floor."

Issei, bending to the task, noting with relief that Hiei was still breathing.

Four-Arms shoving an identical string of beads into Issei's bewildered hands, Gray Suit instructing, "Now just slip this one on in its place."

Completing the task, then struck from behind.

Or so he'd gathered, judging from the tender lump on the back of his head. Issei opened his eyes. Hiei prowled the perimieter of the room, then again tested the door.

"Stupid door," he muttered.

Issei licked dry lips. They were in dire straits, Hiei injured, himself unarmed, the mission badly compromised.

Was it merely that Issei needed to complete the mission as a good operative would, or---had he shown the worst kind of cowardice in removing what he'd assumed to be a useless string of beads from his unconscious partner? Either way, the outcome was imprisonment, the outlook grim.

"I didn't know," he repeated, to Hiei's back.

"Know what?"

"About the power of the Rosary." He took a step closer. "That removing it would---"

"Now you do." Whirling, Hiei balled up the substitute Rosary and stuffed it into Issei's pocket.

"What's that for?"

"Souvenir. In case we make it out alive."

"Thanks."

Hiei looked at the floor. "Sorry." He sighed. "And I don't have any Holy Water to offer you for that cough."

"That's okay. I had tea before." Issei tested the locked door himself, then returned to Hiei. "You knew it wasn't your Rosary even before you looked at that Our Father bead. How?"

"By touch." Hiei lifted his head, met Issei's gaze, and some expression too quick to measure flicked across his eyes. "A Rosary blessed by a priest will burn."

"But I touched your Rosary. I took it off you, placed it on the floor. It didn't burn me."

"You're human," explained Hiei.

_And you're... What?_ Issei's mind refused to wrap itself around the implication. He did not want to understand what Hiei meant.

"But I've got good news," Hiei went on.

Issei let his raised eyebrows ask the question.

"Your man's alive."

(To be continued: The way out isn't always in a straight line.)

-30-


	3. OR C3: Crawlspace

Please see Disclaimer in Chapter 1.

The events in _Idiot Beloved_ take place shortly after the Dark Tournament; _Firebird Sweet_ directly follows that timeline, and you can probably get more out of this sidefic if you read _IB_ and its sequel, _FS_, first.

Title: Operation Rosary C3: Crawlspace

Author: JaganshiKenshin

Genre: Action/Adventure, General

Rating: K+/PG-13

Summary: A crisis in confidence looms for Issei.

A/N: Thanks for reading this! Your reviews mean a lot to me. _Operation Rosary_ is told through the viewpoint of Hiei's 'partner,' Ueda Issei; the burnt-out factory of _Two Shots_ (YYH manga, Vol. 7) is the main setting. Places---such as the warehouses in IB and FS, along with this factory---seem to become almost like secondary characters in many of my fics.

And yes, Moolooite is real. As to whether the Agency does, in fact, exist---if I told you, Hiei would have to kill you.

"I wear the chains I forged in life!"

Operation Rosary (C3: Crawlspace)

by

Kenshin

After the Dark Tournament's end, a number of demons had remained on Kubikukuri Island. Some, like Rinku and Chuu, had already been living in the human world, and had simply returned to business as usual.

Others had more ambition. Yabuta was one of these.

Through half-closed eyes, he regarded his minions, now restlessly prowling the too-small space. Had they no appreciation for his work, for his beautiful device?

Perhaps, Yabuta reflected, they were of an order too low to recognize the true nature of its genius, and of their savior.

Exhilarated by a sense of freedom, a few other demons had managed to hide themselves on the island as well. It was from their ranks that Yabuta recruited his cohort: the oni, the minotaur, the cyclops, the eight-eyes and the redoubtable bungee-arms. They had real names, of course, but it was beneath Yabuta's dignity to recall such trivialities.

During the tournament, Yabuta had, through a network of jaki spies, learned of Sakyou's plan to create a tunnel between human and demon planes. The scheme would cost billions, and require much in the way of cumbersome machinery.

Yabuta prided himself on being far more clever. Unknown to the notorious gambler, he had watched Sakyou closely, and had experienced a thrill like none other when he understood the nature of Sakyou's plan. But the money and machinery to enable that plan---

Sakyou was dead, disgraced, failed. Not so Yabuta.

Yabuta had built a better mousetrap. It had taken him a few years and many experimental subjects (all of whom had ended up as dead as Sakyou), but with the theft of the Moolooite crystal (thanks also to the jaki), Yabuta had at last achieved success.

With his own unique and powerful aura, channeled into the Moolooite-powered laser, Yabuta had been able to do what none before had accomplished: twist space into a shape that could create a gateway between human and demon worlds; something resembling a mini-wormhole. Housing the entire unit within thick ceramic, with its insulating properties, was merely another stroke of his pure genius.

All at a fraction of the cost of Sakyou's scheme.

But the rabble took no notice of that aspect. Nor did they seem to have a well-developed sense of esthetics.

For Yabuta's creation was beautiful in color and form, intent and execution. Its every aspect dazzled the senses, but the minions were too blind to see. They would rather complain about the size of the room, or their own impatience, than worship true genius. They nagged at him, crowded round him, but not in proper reverence, and none at all for the twisting thread above his creation, looking like bubbles of champagne.

Their mindless activity irritated him. "Go away!"

They dispersed; all but one.

Yabuta's creation had, in addition to twisting dimensions, the unusual side effect of twisting other natural orders.

Weak became strong. Strong became weak.

Such power-curve reversals were nothing he could not turn to his own advantage. Though he himself was immune, the perfect test subject had quite obligingly turned up on his doorstep--as Yabuta had suspected, and as confirmed by the very jaki who had attained for him the Moolooite.

Circumstances could not have been more to his liking. And either the test subject's reputation was highly inflated, or Yabuta's device worked brilliantly.

The only thing remaining was the final experiment.

The cramped room, made to seem smaller by the hulking oni and minotaur, was painted light gray. On the south wall stood Yabuta's triumph. Gathered on the opposite side of the room, the minions muttered among themselves.

In the corner of the room adjacent to the steel door, a single, nagging inconvenience occupied a steel chair.

Ignoring all else, Yabuta gazed blissfully upon the thin stream emanating from his creation, a circuit of bent space more elegant than any glass of celebratory champagne because it was a symbol of his genius.

Yet the towering presence at his shoulder refused to leave. A shadow fell across his device.

"Hate to bust your bubbles," said the brown oni, "but that guy was strong. He could seriously mess things up."

_Fool,_ thought Yabuta. Aloud, he said, "What's wrong---lost faith in me already?"

The oni stammered, "N-no, only---"

"Only what?"

"Only the boys are gettin' antsy. They want that gateway open, and they want it now."

"Then I suggest you expend your energy urging them to deal with their 'ants.'" Yabuta returned his gaze to his device, to the bending and warping of a thread-sized bit of space---a loop that would bend the world to his will.

Yabuta wondered whether the unique side effects would be amplified once he threw the final switch to his creation's full power and opened the gateway. Would formerly weak, harmless creatures like jaki be able to level buildings, rip humans limb from limb?

The thought made Yabuta smile. "Behold! I have created Eden, as it should have been."

"Ya shoulda did it last week," said the minotaur. The others guffawed.

Their idiocy was as nothing to one who would, that very night, unleash his new and better Eden on an unsuspecting world.

0-0-0-0-0

"Don't feel so hot," Hiei groaned.

Issei's partner had suddenly paled, swaying in the middle of the room.

Issei was not feeling so hot himself. Sapped by the enemy, choked by Hiei, he had a sore throat and a pounding headache. But Hiei's admission of weakness was the first crack in the little guy's armor, and to Issei's shame, he was almost relieved to have witnessed such a thing. "You took quite a beating back there," Issei said. "And I only added to it."

"No. That's not it. Something's wrong." Beads of sweat stood out against Hiei's waxen skin.

He crashed to his knees, then onto his side. Issei could not reach him in time to stop his fall.

Biting his lip, Issei knelt and pressed his fingertips into Hiei's throat, fearful that he had accidentally struck his parter a fatal blow during their tussle.

No. Hiei had a pulse. A bit fast perhaps, but---

_Go on alone?_

_No. Can't leave a man behind_.

"Better," murmured Hiei, then tried to sit up.

Issei stopped him. Even though time was of the essence, Hiei would clearly benefit from rest. Perhaps answering a few questions would give him a brief respite in which to recover.

"Those guys who attacked us," Issei began. "I shot at them, and some of the shots hit. I know they did. But no effect."

"Hard to bring 'em down with just bullets," Hiei responded. "You need either point-blank range, or augmented shot."

"Augmented?"

Hiei only mopped at his brow.

"And how do you know our agent's alive?" Issei wondered.

"You didn't take my Holy Water or Salt."

"True. But I still don't see how that tells you Op-X---"

"Holy Water or Salt would burn those guys badly," Hiei explained. "My guess is that they clocked you too soon, and only then discovered I was still packing heat. Whoever took those things off me was as human as you are."

"Stay put." Rising, Issei went to the door, glanced out its dirty, chicken-wired window. "Still locked. Hall's empty." When he gestured, the chains attached to his cuffs jangled. _I wear the chains I forged in life_, he thought, recalling Jacob Marley's warning to Scrooge.

"Yeah, we're not getting out that way," Hiei agreed.

_Chains_, thought Issei. _Wonder why that quote popped into my head. There's something I'm not quite getting yet_.

Abruptly, Hiei sat up, then got to his feet, looking steadier than he did just moments ago. "Let's ditch this place."

Issei glanced at the water-stained ceiling. It was fashioned of sound-muffling tile, each tile about three feet by five, laid into a grid of metal strips. Easy on, easy off. More than likely there was a crawlspace above it, for service access. And, Issei hoped, enough structural stability to hold them.

With no furniture in the room, there was nothing to climb up on, but the relatively low ceiling afforded them at least one advantage. Issei turned to Hiei. "I'll give you a leg up."

"All right," said Hiei, "but just this once."

"Try the panel next to the fluorescent light."

Hiei's movements as he gained a foothold on Issei's shoulders seemed surprisingly fluid for someone who had taken such damage. As soon as the freelancer had the panel set aside, he sprang down. "After you," he gestured.

Once Issei was up, he got Hiei beside him, and they surveyed their surroundings.

Hiei sat with knees drawn up, arms crossed over them, and chin tucked so that only the insolent gleam of his eyes was visible. Issei mirrored his posture, caught himself doing it, defiantly placed both palms flat on the floor---then recoiled at the gritty feel of the floor on his hands.

The crawlspace was some four feet high, and contained a claustrophobic mix of conduits and duct-work. The 'floor' was nothing but wooden joists and crossbeams, but in places, loose plywood sheets had been laid down, so repairmen could sit with relative ease. These seemed sound enough, but littered with various debris in addition to grit: bodies of dead vermin, lengths of wire and wood, a styrofoam cup that some worker had left behind in an earlier time. The dank smell of mould made an unpleasant cocktail with the borderline scents of decomposition and burnt wiring.

Flame rises; water falls. The basement had been relatively untouched by fire, but water damage from attempts to put out the blaze was evident.

Though not quite pitch-dark, the crawlspace grew darker in the distance, not helped by large patches of oily-looking soot clinging to the walls.

Issei sighed. "Never really liked enclosed spaces."

"Better than being shackled to a wall," Hiei replied.

They rested sore arms and legs for a bit. Hiei looked like he'd lost a fight with a wood-chipper; by contrast Issei's bruises seemed playground-level.

"Better replace that ceiling tile," Issei suggested. "If they come looking for us, it might buy a few minutes if we haven't left them a neon sign saying where we are."

Hiei grunted agreement, but when the tile was replaced, much of the light sifting up from their recently-vacated dungeon was cut off.

"I hate when that happens," sighed Issei.

"I can fix that," Hiei said. "More shirt, please."

Another strip of fabric torn and handed over. Hiei grabbed a broken length of wood lath. When he turned back to Issei, the fabric was twisted onto the lath---and aglow with fire.

"How'd you manage that? You said they took everything---"

"First things first," Hiei interrupted. "We'll make enough noise dragging these chains, so be careful locating whatever Op-X came looking for. Don't want them to hear us coming."

Issei ventured a theory. "Whatever they're hiding, it's big. Maybe even the size of one of those old Eniac computers, the ones that filled an entire room. That has to mean it's also in the basement."

"Project X?" Hiei nodded in agreement. "You read my mind."

"The ground floor sustained too much damage, and even if parts of the second floor and executive 'tower' were relatively untouched, they might not be structurally sound enough to support the weight of a big machine."

"And the basement offers superior concealment."

"No time like the present." On hands and knees, Issei began to move out, but Hiei stopped him.

"Nothing doing. I'll take the point."

"What for?"

"I can see better than you." As though to prove it, Hiei handed Issei the torch. "And I have a sense of where the enemy's camped out."

That 'sense' was just one of many things Issei did not want to wrap his brain around just now. It included the possibility that Hiei was not quite your garden-variety special agent. Issei considered, then rejected, the possibility that Hiei had been implanted with a micro-chip containing a homing device of sorts. "I don't think I'll ask the next question," said Issei.

"You'd better, if only to yourself. And you'd better ask some others. Why didn't they just kill us outright?"

"No time? But that doesn't make sense. It took longer to drag us downstairs and lock us up. And why have me substitute a fake Rosary? As far as I know, Rosary doppelgangers aren't found lying around burnt-out doll factories."

"Good point. These guys have been here a while."

"And knew you were coming. But how?"

"Spies are everywhere," Hiei said enigmatically. "So they had that Rosary ready. Someone either guessed, or was informed. Who are they? What do they want?"

Issei only had an answer for the last question. "I'm betting it wasn't just my echinacea."

"If the enemy has the ability to make even third-rate thugs like those bring me down---" Hiei broke off, grinning. "But there are still a few things I can teach them."

"And teach me along with them?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" In the torchlight, Hiei's face revealed scorn mixed with genuine puzzlement. "I have certain---abilities. From the moment I entered this factory I felt a dampening effect, acting to suppress them."

"Project X?"

"X the Unknown. The Agency wants it."

Issei rolled his eyes. "You think?"

"If it can dampen certain abilities, it could also be tuned to raise them."

"And that's bad?"

Hiei snorted. "Those guys back then---they were the types with low power ratings to begin with. What kind of machine can lower a high-power rating and leave the lower one untouched---or maybe even raise it?" Getting to his hands and knees, he proceeded across the plywood at a crawl.

"Why was I kept in the dark about this?" Even as the words left his lips, Issei knew it made him sound like a whiner.

Darkness.

Hiei's words floated back to him. "Maybe this is a test. Maybe they're getting ready to kick you upstairs."

"Some test. No info, no weapons."

"Not even your echinacea."

"Bastards," agreed Issei.

"But what better test than to toss you into the deep end?"

"A written exam? With multiple-choice questions?"

"Or maybe they think you're expendible."

_So I'm just a redshirt, like those demons?_ "Swell."

"Bet my sword's still intact. Those idiots would have no reason to destroy it, and they might even now be playing with it. I hope they're cutting each other to pieces. But the Holy Water and Salt have gone down the drain. And because it's likely Operative X took them, we have to expect he's the one who knew I'd be coming."

"You're saying he's defected."

Hiei didn't answer.

"I don't know," muttered Issei. "One doesn't like to think such things but---"

"They'd better not have harmed a single bead on my Rosary. As for my phone..." Hiei trailed off.

"And a phone'll protect us any better than vitamin C?"

"You still don't get it." Hiei smirked at him. "It's not the phone or anything else that I carried. _I'm_ the protection."

"If you're the protection---" Issei broke off. Finally, "I'm no James Bond," he blurted.

Hiei nodded gravely. "In case no one's told you yet---James Bond is fictional."

"I know that!"

"And he's not Japanese," Hiei continued.

"I know that, too!"

"Have you always choked in the clutch like this?"

"Only since meeting _you._" Hiei: by turns inscrutable to the point of rudeness, then protective, then murderous. What 'other' agency did he work for? What was his cover? Only questions; no answers. "I can't figure you at all."

"Easy. I break things and kill people."

They sat in stony silence, the faint hiss of burning fabric the only sound. Issei glanced at the chains trailing from wrist and ankle alike. _'Tis a ponderous chain,_ he thought, again quoting Dickens to himself. Swallowing anger and pride in equal measure, he broke the silence. "X the Unknown---you were saying?"

"It's a two-edged sword," Hiei replied, as though there had been no tension between them at all. "I may be tapped out, but that means they can't sense me coming. And they definitely won't sense _you_." Hiei jerked his head to the right. "That way."

"What makes you so certain?"

"Because when I turn in that direction, I feel sick."

Through the forest of conduits, they crept toward the source of the 'emanations.' Issei reflected on the possibility that he was indeed expendible. Although in one sense, every agent is, no one wants to believe that his own life does not matter.

The air seemed thicker here; Issei could only imagine the amount of mould he was inhaling. "I don't know why they sent me to tag along with you. You could have handled this all on your own."

"Listen, kid---"

_Kid?!_

"The Agency doesn't employ junk. And greatness has a way of rubbing off on a guy. Urameshi Yuusuke once beat the crap out of me and sent me to jail. Best thing that ever happened."

"Thanks for the pep talk, 'Dad.'" Issei rolled his eyes.

They crawled further, hampered not only by the crowded space, but also by their cuffs and chains. And the closer they got to their destination, the more apparent that something was wrong with Hiei.

He had slowed, shaking in every limb, like a man at the very limit of his endurance. It could have been the results of previous damage catching up to him, but Issei didn't believe so.

They were probably near the locus---where the effect was emanating. It was clear that Hiei could go no further.

Hiei's shaking increased. His head dropped between his shoulders; he almost fell. Issei came forward to steady him. The torchlight revealed a face soaked in sweat, twisted in pain. "This is bad," Hiei panted. "We're close; I feel it. Can't---"

"I'll go on ahead."

"Close. Really close."

"I'll just do a brief recon," Issei assured him. "Then come right back here." He turned to go.

"Wait," groaned Hiei.

Issei waited. The smoking torch at least masked the stink of mold. Once this mission was finished, he was going to have to go on a high-dose regimen of C and enchinacea for sure. Again---_if_ he survived.

Hiei licked his lips. "You need to know something," he said at length. "I have this---attack---no, secret weapon, oh, Hell, attack. Court of last resort. Based on light---"

"You keep mentioning light."

Hiei shut his eyes; in the meagre yellow illumination he looked pale and sick again. In a hoarse whisper he spoke in rambling, disjointed sentences, something about an attack, about a sword of the archangel, the light---

"Try to relax."

"Can't---light---not fatal---such small amount as the Rosary---but in quantities the attack uses---"

"Brace up! You're going to be fine."

Hiei grimaced. "Just saying---if I have to use it, head for the hills. Won't be much of this place left."

"The hills are too far. No one's bailing." Issei shifted the torch from his right hand to his left. "Which way do I go?"

Hiei pointed straight ahead, and Issei went on alone.

(To be continued: Will Hiei recover in time to help his partner?)

-30-


	4. OR C4: X The Unknown

Please see Disclaimer in Chapter 1.

The events in _Idiot Beloved_ take place shortly after the Dark Tournament; _Firebird Sweet_ directly follows that timeline, and you can probably get more out of this sidefic if you read IB and its sequel first.

Title: Operation Rosary C4: X The Unknown

Author: JaganshiKenshin

Genre: Action/Adventure, General

Rating: K+/PG-13

Summary: A lesson in particle physics is rudely interrupted.

A/N: _Operation Rosary_ is told through the viewpoint of Hiei's 'partner,' who has never heard of him till now; the burnt-out factory of _Two Shots_ (YYH manga, Vol. 7) is the main setting. The effects of _Makai_ leaking into _Ningenkai_ have been documented in YYH's _Chapter Black_. Please review! I appreciate it.

As to whether the Agency does, in fact, exist---if I told you, Hiei would have to kill you.

"We must stop them, no matter the cost!"

Operation Rosary (C4: X The Unknown)

by

Kenshin

Ueda Issei crept forward alone, toward the direction Hiei had indicated. Lacking his partner's 'sense' of things, and with only torchlight to guide him through the crawlspace, he was virtually in the dark.

_Why don't I come equipped with some micro-chip tracking device?_ he thought irritably. _Or a listening device, or those exploding cuff links, or---_

Controlling his annoyance, Issei paused, let out a slow, calming breath. He knew why he lacked such items.

Perhaps better than anyone, he understood that funds for gadgetry were at an all-time low, for Ueda Issei's cover at 'Yabuta Industries' was as its accountant.

Progress was slow; the floor was not really a floor, but a perilous series of wooden cross-beams, below which lay the relatively soft ceiling tiles. The sheets of plywood that had been laid over the beams petered out here, and it would be all too easy to crash through to the basement below.

The claustrophobic journey made his head pound, but Issei kept inching ahead. He was certain James Bond would have crossed the distance in half the time. Hiei, in a quarter as long.

_If_ Hiei had been up to it. The lttle freelancer was not only sick, but disoriented. Disoriented, hell! Nuts, more likely. An attack of light, a court of last resort?

Speaking of light---there was more than enough illumination to display a litter of dead vermin in Issei's path, clustered within some cross-beams. One of the creatures was not a rat, but something that looked like a miniature version of the oni, down to the tiger-skin toga.

Shuddering, Issei wondered if demons came that small, or was if X the Unknown was some sort of shrinking ray. He crept round the bodies, into darker spaces.

For some time, in a nagging, unconscious fashion, Issei had suspected he wasn't top Agency material. That his tight-lipped, buttoned-down persona was better suited to actual accounting than covert action. And now this fellow Hiei had appeared, as if to show Issei the difference, for despite his dress and manner, Hiei was the real deal.

Maybe Issei should become the Agency's accountant. Such a lateral move might not result in too deep a pay cut, but the loss of face---

_Snap out of it!_

The air turned foul. Licking his lips in distaste, Issei glanced around, unsure of where to turn. Perhaps Hiei's sense of direction had been knocked out of whack due to the oddly charged atmosphere flooding the crawlspace.

And the crawlspace itself was choked, not just with that rancid air, not just with dead vermin, but also ducts, conduits and construction debris. Maybe the vermin had died trying to find their way out of what amounted to a giant maze.

Just when Issei felt hopelessly lost, he heard raised voices to guide his way. And the atmosphere, bad as it was before, closed in like a wet rag: heavy as gruel, dank, choked, wrong.

Just as suddenly, the oppression lifted, leaving him to wonder whether he'd imagined it.

He hadn't imagined the voices. They rose again. Issei crept determinedly toward the shouts, and where they seemed loudest, he laid the low-burning torch across a hunk of metal, then found a spot where he could worm his fingers through the framework around a ceiling tile.

"Stop playing with that damned sword and get over here!"

Issei froze. The imperative came in the affected voice of Gray Suit. But there was also an unpleasant, metallic edge to his voice now---a knife-slash of desperation.

The rumble of other disgruntled voices swarmed like a buzzing of bees, culminating in someone who shouted: "Who needs a sword when we got THIS?"

_Hiei's sword? It's still there?_

Someone said, "Let's stick the human and see if he bleeds."

Another voice replied, "He'll bleed just fine, you moron, but what about the Rosary and Holy Water!"

Issei shut his eyes a moment in gratitude. If Hiei felt the Rosary and Holy Water were important, perhaps this news would hearten him, return some of his strength.

"Fools!" Gray Suit spoke again. "And if he throws them?"

_So. That's why the desperation in their leader's voice. He's losing control of his men_.

"Any volunteers?" drawled Gray Suit. "I thought not."

Then, a thick, bubbly voice---the minotaur's---said, "We can do anything we like! Kill the human, eat him! What's Holy Water to us now?"

A voice Issei recognized as the oni's said, "Suppose somethin' bad happens when we stick him with the sword?"

"Something bad?" echoed the minotaur. "Like dying?"

A new voice said, "Once we throw the switch nothin' don't matter!" That sounded like Eight-Eyes.

"Listen, you dolts!" Gray Suit's veneer of bored sophisticate was peeling away, fast. "_My_ genius created this new Eden, and my aura drives it, not yours. It's not for the likes of you to decide when and where it happens."

"Looks like Eden just grabbed your aura an' run off with it," said Eight-Eyes.

"Yeah," someone else interjected. "Looks like we don't hafta listen to you any more."

"We can throw a switch as well as the next demon," the minotaur agreed.

Issei felt close to desperation himself. _We need to act. No time to fumble around, access a panel from another room, mount an assault from the door. The door may be locked. And if they hear us coming they'll kill our man. Or throw that switch._

_No, we have to attack from above. And we have to do it now, while they're fighting among themselves. But first, I have to determine Op-X 's exact location_.

Again working his fingers under the edge of the ceiling panel, Issei inched it aside, then stretched flat on his belly. Heedless now of mold or germs, he pressed his face to the opening to take a cautious glance below.

He was evidently above the center of the room; and it looked much like their 'dungeon,' except these walls were pale gray.

The squabbling voices came from a part of the room Issei could not see. But against the wall facing him, he found what he was looking for.

The machine stood at rest. X The Unknown.

_That's IT?_ wondered Issei, in astonishment.

This machine, this dreaded contraption, over which they had gone to so much trouble, resembled nothing so much as a Big Green Egg---the barbecue units popular in Japan and elsewhere.

In fact, it _was_ an Egg. Issei knew them well; his uncle Kentaro had two of them, in which he smoked pork ribs and whole chickens to succulent effect. Issei was momentarily stunned by X's prosaic looks, but concentrated on taking its inventory.

The domed body was indeed egg-shaped, made of heavy, dark-green ceramic with a dimpled surface. It was housed in a four-legged rolling cart, and had a handle on top, and a small round temperature gauge centered high on the hinged lid. Only a couple of feet tall even up on its 'legs,' it looked comical, like a cartoon robot, an impression strengthened by two side tables jutting from the body, almost like arms. Issei half-expected the Egg to get up and walk away.

A dual set of tubes resembling crazy straws made of copper arose from the back of the unit, not part of the original equipment on any Egg. The handle, normally a matte black and resting against the dome, had been painted red and fixed upright, indeed like a switch.

Also not part of the original equipment was a small table laser, resting on the left 'arm.' The laser looked like nothing so much as a flattish metal box a little longer and narrower than a book. Powered, Issei guessed, by the stolen Moolooite crystal.

But what really caught Issei's attention was something that hovered in the air above the unit.

_There_ was Issei's weird 'atmosphere,' that wrongness he had sensed all along. The space directly above the unit was fluid and alive with swirly _threads_, like eels constructed of champagne bubbles, swimming, slowly searching for---

For what, Issei could not even begin to guess. Each 'thread' was no thicker than a man's forearm, and even from his high angle, Issei recognized the configuration as a Moebius loop.

At first glance like a figure-8, a Mobius strip has but one surface with a single side and a single boundary component. Any schoolkid can form one with a strip of paper, by twisting the strip so the top surface of one end is glued to the bottom surface of the opposite end. Build a Mobius strip large enough, wear gravity boots, and you can walk along its length and return to your starting point without ever crossing an edge.

_Then it's really just one thread_, Issei realized. Perhaps this was why they'd sent a particle physicist to investigate.

_And ceramic has superior insulating abilities. That Egg may look comical, but some forethought went into this baby. We've got to get hold of it. But how, with all those demons below, and with Hiei sick and raving?_

Now and again, the loop twisted from its tight configuration into something funnel-like, and when this occurred, Issei felt disoriented, weak, both hot and cold at once. He put a hand to his brow; the skin almost scorched his icy fingers.

Could this be the cause of Hiei's illness?

The Mobius regained its normal appearance, and the sick feeling lifted. Issei went boneless with relief. Perhaps this atmospheric phenomenon, in addition to making the air almost too thick to breathe, also caused chaos to increase, resulting in frayed tempers among Gray Suit's minions. Or perhaps it was simply that there was no honor among cutthroats. Whatever the reason for the breakdown in the chain of command, Issei would use it to his advantage.

Then Issei spotted something that heartened him still further. Leaning against the wall beside Egg the Unknown, in between two folding chairs, was what had to be Hiei's sword, still in its black _saya_.

_Maybe my gun's there, too._ He'd emptied a magazine and a half; three bullets remained, but there was a third magazine. Would they know how to load it? The thought did not cheer him as much as the sight of the sword; there might not be any swordsmen among the demons, but with the Walther PPK in their hands---

Tearing his gaze from Egg The Unknown, Issei scanned the room. He didn't have far to go.

Tucked away in a far corner of the room, still clutching the Rosary as though his life depended on it, slumped in a folding chair, was Operative X.

Issei recalled Hiei's description: 5' 10", 190 pounds, brown hair, blue eyes. But Hiei hadn't mentioned that the guy could have been on a magazine cover, with that thick wavy hair and those patrician features. He looked less like a particle physicist than a matinee idol.

"Listen, Yabuta-sama." Issei heard the rumble of the brown oni's voice again, but the creature was not in sight. "I done that outside job you wanted, but these guys, well, they're---"

Gray Suit---Yabuta---strode into view. Though his suit was still pressed, and his appearance still human, apart from the celery-green skin and backswept ears, he was no longer cool and controlled. Running his hands through no-longer-sleek hair, Yabuta stopped, facing Op-X. "Useless piece of human trash! If we could just get that Rosary away---"

"He's hoardin' the Holy Water an' Salt too," the oni reminded his master.

_So Op-X hasn't defected? He's protecting himself any way he can_! Yet clearly, their agent was still under some sort of thrall, whether from Yabuta's aura, or the Egg itself.

"Throw the switch!" yelled the minotaur. A gabble of _youkai_ voices were raised in agreement. Only the oni was opposed. He seemed fearful of what would happen.

Issei's attention shifted to his guttering torch. A strip of cotton shirt will only burn so far, and the wood lath was dank, and smoking, and about to go out altogether. He had only moments left in which to see--and he saw one thing clearly.

He could not handle this situation by himself. There was no way he could face down all those monsters, rescue Op-X, and claim Egg the Unknown. No matter how tapped out Hiei was, Issei had to retrace his steps, reclaim his partner.

The torch died.

Now the only illumination came from fluorescent light leaking from the room below, thin, ghostly, unsettling.

_Time to go back._ Turning carefully in the cluttered space, Issei almost cried out in shock.

The one-man wrecking crew, the protection, had pulled himself together. For Hiei was already there, right behind Issei, a study in sheer guts. In the dim greenish light he looked pale, sick, and far too young to be anyone's 'protection.'

Hiei gave him a crooked grin. "Shaken, not stirred?"

Quickly, Issei summed up what he had learned, adding, "They must have quite a dossier on you. They knew to obtain a Rosary and swap it out for---"

"Not enough of a dossier." Hiei dragged a forearm across his brow, wiping away sweat, muttering a curse as the chains and shackle got in the way. "They thought if we got loose I wouldn't notice the difference."

"Can you hear them arguing?"

Hiei nodded. "This 'switch' they're going to throw. I don't like the sound of it. Could open up the barrier."

"Barrier?"

"Figuratively speaking, all Hell's gonna break loose."

"And not figuratively?"

"Those guys down below are just small potatoes."

"Those monsters? You're kidding." Could this be another form of Hiei's bravado? He seemed to have plenty on hand.

"Remember I told you something didn't feel right? If what I suspect is true---"

"I feel it too." Issei had no idea how he was sensing it, but the storm-thickening of the air was at its worst here, almost a taste of sulphur. A thunderstorm, no matter how destructive, is a natural event. This was profoundly un-natural.

"If that machine does what I think it was designed to do, it'll open a doorway for monsters that make those guys seem like Hello Kitty toys. Monsters even I couldn't handle."

The thought made Issei turn cold. "Your sword's there, next to the Egg," he said quickly. "I'll do the drop and distract them. But you'd better make good use of that weapon."

"And you'd better get your man away. Right now, Op-X is more valuable than gold. Get him out at all costs. I'm here to deal with those _youkai_---and the Egg."

"Understood." Yet Issei hesitated. Everything he had experienced till now, the weight of the mission, the _youkai_, the Egg, the fear and self-doubt, all came surging together into an intolerable pressure that struck at the center of his chest. _Can't breathe! Can't---if we go into that room we'll die! Get me out of here!_ His stomach whirled; nausea clawed its way up to his throat.

Issei cast a pleading glance at Hiei, about to beg him to run, to join him in flight---and saw his partner sweating, shaking, his struggle apparent even in darkness. This horrific spasm of madness, this overwhelming fear---was that what Hiei had felt all along?

Hiei caught Issei's glance. "Scared?"

An automatic denial sprang to Issei's lips, but he stopped himself. _Can't lie, not now, not with my back to the wall._ He settled for a curt nod.

To his surprise, Hiei nodded back. "Same here."

Forcing his jaws apart, Issei asked, "Then how do you---"

"Easy. I'm standing between those monsters and my family. I'll stop them even if I have to die doing it."

In all his years at the Agency, Issei had never pictured someone to protect, but the answer leapt to his mind at once. Her violet eyes wide with terror, blonde hair streaming as a _youkai_ ran her down. _Miss Sakamoto! No! I can't let them get to her. If Hiei can pull himself together for this, so can I._

"Ready?"

They exchanged one _let's-do-this_ glance. Then, heaving the panel aside, Issei dropped into the center of the room.

He landed with Op-X at his back, the Egg slightly behind him to his right, Yabuta guarding the door. The relative closeness of the low ceiling to the floor made for a soft enough landing.

A beat of stillness. The demons were jammed in a knot against the wall ahead of him: hulking brown oni, black and menacing minotaur, stumpy-legged cyclops, even lavender-hued Four-Arms and battleship-gray Eight-Eyes, all of them cringing, scrubbing at their eyes as if the sight of the Egg had hurt them.

Yabuta gave a single gasp as, one by one, heads lifted, demonic gazes found Issei, and awareness spread through the room.

"CRAP!" The oni, hunched over thanks to the low ceiling, was first to react. He lunged toward Issei, swung his club in a lateral arc, his balance askew.

Issei ducked under the wild blow, rolled sideways, gained his feet again. He sensed rather than saw Hiei land, check on Operative X, and grab the sword, all in one smooth motion. Then Hiei was beside the Egg.

Issei inched backward, toward Op-X, always keeping the demons in sight.

Yabuta, still as a statue, open-mouthed in shock, one hand resting on the door handle. Clearly, he had not expected this invasion. He recovered quickly enough. "Forget the human," he ordered. "Deal with that swordsman!"

Issei found no comfort in those words. He knew he would not be permitted to waltz out unscathed.

No matter how weak Hiei felt, with sword in hand he looked formidable. The _youkai_ hesitated, muttering curses.

"Get him!" commanded Yabuta. None of the redshirts stirred. Even Issei dared not move.

To his right, Hiei and the Egg. Before them, the angry mob. Behind him, Op-X in a corner, slumped on his folding chair.

_Get your man out at all costs_.

The weight of the standoff seemed as thick as the twisted air. The minotaur and oni crouched in readiness, the cyclops growled, Four-Arms flicked his near-human gaze between Issei and Hiei as if trying to measure the distance between them. Issei knew the speed and strength of those four bungee-like arms.

Eight-Eyes cracked his knuckles. "Well? What're we scared of? That runt ain't nothin' now, even with a sword. We got the machine! We got powered-up, an' his power level's way down."

"Yeah, the machine," said the minotaur. "Throw the switch!"

"Not without my orders." Yabuta's voice was glacial.

For their part, the redshirts focused on Hiei, quivering with rage or eagerness or both.

And for his part, Hiei stalked toward them, putting a few precious feet of distance between himself and Issei.

Yabuta's eyes flashed. "How dare you interfere!" he demanded. "This is my game, and you'll play by my rules!"

But the rules had been tossed out long ago, and the redshirts were more intent on Hiei than their master. Even Issei listened to Yabuta with only half an ear as he watched their reactions. Hampered they may have been by the small space, still they itched to tackle the swordsman.

Hiei matched them glare for glare. "Think you can take me?" He gave a low, menacing chuckle. "Go ahead on."

"That's it!" The minotaur's hands crunched into fists. With him in the lead, the _youkai_ took up Hiei's challenge.

While Yabuta clamored for control, and with a herd of monsters closing in, Ueda Issei made a dive for Operative X.

(To be continued: Is Hiei any match for the powered-up henchmen?)

-30-


	5. OR C5: Green Egg, No Ham

Please see Disclaimer in Chapter 1.

The events in _Idiot Beloved_ take place shortly after the Dark Tournament; _Firebird Sweet_ directly follows that timeline, and you can probably get more out of this sidefic if you read IB and its sequel first.

Title: Operation Rosary C5: Green Egg, No Ham

Author: JaganshiKenshin

Genre: Action/Adventure, General

Rating: K+/PG-13

Summary: The court of last resort means that one man goes down.

A/N: _Operation Rosary_ is told through the viewpoint of Hiei's 'partner,' who is slowly overcoming his initial dislike of 'the arrogant runt.' The main setting remains the burnt-out factory of _Two Shots_ (YYH manga, Vol. 7)---though not for long. Please review! I'm doing things a bit differently now, only linking these stories to my LJ when they're finished, so making/posting one sketch per story.

This penultimate chapter marks my biggest-ever lag updating a story. A combination of computer and other problems have kept me down for some time. Hope it doesn't happen again.

As to whether the Agency does, in fact, exist---if I told you, Hiei would STILL have to kill you.

"Never leave a friend behind!"

Operation Rosary (C5: Green Egg, No Ham)

by

Kenshin

In the flick of an eye, the gray cinderblock room had become a chaos of rushing _youkai,_ of angry shouts and the reek of sweat. Issei stopped, so close to retrieving the semi-conscious Operative X that his fingers itched. But he had missed his chance. No choice now but to turn and fight.

The onslaught of both the oni and minotaur was hampered by the low ceiling---and also Hiei's flashing sword as he stood between Issei and the enemy.

Four-Arms had no such problem. Lashing out from behind the pack, his bungee-like appendages knocked Issei to the floor.

Rolling out of reach, Issei regained his feet. The blow had stung rather than hurt, and he glanced at Operative X, determining that the semi-conscious man remained in his seat. With Yabuta blocking the door, escape would prove difficult.

Mesmerized by the roiling Mobius above the Egg, Eight-Eyes did not pose an immediate threat.

But Four-Arms had wormed his way forward, close enough for Issei to see the triumphant leer on his lavender-hued face. Any second those infinitely stretchable arms would---

_Not this time!_ As Issei's respect for his partner had grown, so also his confidence had returned. Leaping at Four-Arms, Issei startled the creature into a split-second of hesitation, using that moment to whip his chains across the demon's face. When Four-Arms recoiled, Issei got a glimpse of Hiei, keeping the oni at bay with great two-handed strokes of his sword. _If I could just find my gun---_

The yellow-furred cyclops broke free, its orange eye like a hot coal, its three-fingered hands like grappling hooks.

A metal folding chair leaned against the wall. Snatching it up, Issei swung it in a whooshing arc and whacked the cyclops across its head. It retreated yelping, and when Four-Arms attacked again, Issei gave him the same. His blow sent Four-Arms reeling into the Egg, almost toppling the device.

"Fool!" Releasing his deathgrip on the door, Yabuta dashed to the Egg and wrenched Four-Arms away, cursing under his breath.

Four-Arms teetered a moment, then crashed to the floor.

The fighting stopped. All gazes turned toward Yabuta. With a great show of indignation, he made certain the red loop atop the Egg remained in 'parked' position. Then he spoke through clenched teeth. "The time will be of my choosing. Not yours, nor anyone else's."

Four-Arms clambered to his feet, eyeing Yabuta with the doughy surprise of a minion who has just discovered his position is not quite as important as he once believed.

Now it was the black minotaur who tried to rush past Hiei. But with a casual swipe of his sword, Hiei separated the creature's right ear from the rest of him, freezing him where he stood. Ear hit wall in a splatter of rust-colored blood, then tumbled to the floor.

Gaping at his severed appendage, the minotaur snarled at Hiei, "That was my best ear!"

"Guess you should've been more careful with it." Hiei gave a flourish of his bloodied sword. "Anyone else?"

The oni seemed to bide his time, and the cyclops still whined in pain. But the minotaur pawed the ground, preparing to charge. "Even lopsided I can take a runt like you!"

"I've handled bulls before." Hiei grinned. "Just ask the next hamburger you meet."

Though his beady eyes flared with bloodlust, the minotaur subsided; Hiei with a sword was more than he'd bargained for.

Was this the moment? The door lay almost directly across from Operative X---and Yabuta had left his 'post.' Fifteen feet to freedom, but no way for Issei to catch Hiei's eye.

Still guarding the Egg, Yabuta addressed Eight-Eyes. "I see you admire my handiwork." The affected drawl had returned to Yabuta's voice, making Issei long to apply the chair to his head. "And why not stare? Beauty is as genius does."

The gray-skinned demon reached to touch the Egg, but it was too far away. "Just remember that this is my creation," warned Yabuta. "No one else will lay a hand on it."

Eight-Eyes had other ideas. Inching toward the Egg, he ignored Yabuta's warning. Though Hiei made no attempt to stop him, he angled his body to keep him in view. Still Issei could not catch his attention.

As for Eight-Eyes, the Egg was his goal. For all that it resembled a cartoon robot, Issei was aware of its Moolooite laser, of Yabuta's deadly intent. And there was nothing remotely cartoonish about the space-bending Mobius above the Egg.

Eight-Eyes grunted, his human-looking face at disturbing odds with that milky string of orbs.

Issei sensed this was a critical junction---a core of truth he had yet to penetrate. Just as the bland box of a room contrasted sharply with its demonic inhabitants, so did this creature's human face contrast with his inhuman eyes.

Yet the room was only a container. Something else was at odds here, something beyond the uneasy disparity of face and form within the same being. A disordering of the natural world, a disordering of natural law?

Why did Eight-Eyes unsettle him beyond the other _youkai_? The speechless cyclops seemed little more than an animal, while the minotaur was as familiar to Greek legend as the oni was to Japanese. But Eight-Eyes spoke as a human, had the form of a human---except for the eyes. Even Four-Arms, another parody of the human shape, had at least fully human facial features. Eight-Eyes was more like a mad scientist's attempt to jam two species together to create his own distorted idea of perfection.

Whatever the truth behind this disquieting mix, Issei could not put his finger on it.

Nor could Eight-Eyes put his finger on the Egg. Agitated now, he shifted his focus from the Egg to his master. "Don't tell me what to do, Yabuta. This thing ain't yours no more. It's mine now. Mine!"

"Yours?" Yabuta lifted an eyebrow. "I see. Then by all means, come and take it."

"Just watch me, sucker." Licking his lips, Eight-Eyes took another step. Like Hiei, Yabuta made no attempt to stop him, but merely watched his approach, relaxed, almost confident.

Hands shaking with eagerness or fear, Eight-Eyes reached for the red loop atop the green Egg's ceramic dome---the 'switch.'

It was Yabuta who had the Walther PPK after all. With Issei watching every move, Yabuta drew it from an inside pocket of his sleek suit.

Eight-Eyes paused, then dismissed the weapon with a laugh. "Y'don't even know how t' use that thing."

"Oh?" Yabuta smirked. "Care to put it to the test?"

"Think a bullet's gonna stop me?"

Before Issei could formulate a plan to retrieve his weapon, Yabuta placed both hands on the gun, pushed the muzzle against Eight-Eyes' chest, and fired.

Even with the Walther's silencer in place, Issei heard the solid _whump_ of the .38 as it pierced Eight-Eyes.

One round. A great deal hinged on how much ammo remained.

There was a momentary tableau of Yabuta, the gun, and Eight-Eyes, who at first did not appear to realize he had been shot. Then, with a little sigh, he sank to the floor. A sticky purplish liquid pooled on the gray linoleum beneath him.

"This close?" said Yabuta. "Evidently."

The other demons remained where they were, as did Hiei and Issei. Yabuta gave them a saccharine smile. "Next?"

"Guys who simper should _not_ carry firearms," Issei remarked.

Still smiling, Yabuta turned the gun on Issei, took aim, but did not squeeze off another shot. He flicked a withering glance at Hiei, as the swordsman stood guard. "I'll speak slowly, so that even the likes of you can understand me."

"The smartest man I ever met," said Hiei, lowering his sword an inch, "does not keep harping on the quality of his intellect. Makes me wonder about the quantity of _yours_."

Yabuta's mouth twisted. To Issei it seemed that he embodied arrogance, making Hiei appear by contrast a humble penitent.

"Wonder no more." With a casual wave of the gun, Yabuta gestured toward the Egg. "Behold the fruits of my genius."

"That and fifty yen'll get you some _tako yaki_," said Issei.

In response, Yabuta again pointed the gun at Issei. The Walther's stiff action needed a lot of pressure; Issei hoped the wiry demon could not manage another shot. "You may not comprehend, but what I have done is extraordinary. Once I open the gates to these poor creatures, whom humankind has oppressed for centuries---"

"Except for that guy you just blew away," Issei cut in.

The surviving demons had kept quiet, but when they heard Issei, their voices rose in angry agreement.

"Silence!" Yabuta flicked a glance at his minions, but kept the gun trained on Issei.

"You know," said Hiei, "someone as tense as you should be taking massive doses of valerian root."

The gun wobbled in Yabuta's hand.

"Try using both hands," suggested Issei.

"That's right," encouraged Hiei. "Like before. When you gunned down your own man."

Rumblings of demonic malcontent swept the room.

"A tragic accident," said Yabuta, "and one which will not happen again." The gun dipped in his hand as though grief---or the Walther---proved too heavy a burden. "Nevertheless, I have done what others have failed to do."

"And what exactly is that?" Issei watched Yabuta for an opening in which he could wrench the gun away.

"Haven't you been paying attention? The new Eden."

"Hate to burst your bubble," said Issei, "but Eden's already been tried."

"Not like this. This Eden will be perfect because it's under my control."

Issei wanted to point out that Yabuta seemed incapable of controlling either his men or his machine. Instead, he mused to no one in particular, "I come down here expecting to find, oh, maybe the Russian Mafia, maybe the Yakuza, some guys engaged in a little industrial espionage, things of that nature." He paused. "Instead I find _you_."

"Life's just full of surprises," agreed Hiei. He stood but a few feet away, between Issei and the _youkai_, but when he replied, he turned to meet Issei's gaze at last.

"You should feel honored." Yabuta narrowed his eyes. "After all, you'll be my first human sacrifice."

"Will it work like he claims?" Issei asked of Hiei, ignoring Yabuta, making it a deliberate insult.

"The Egg?" Hiei shrugged. "Seems inherently unstable. But bottom line---yeah. It's already given us a foretaste or two, all on its own."

"I'm guessing the laser's activated by that red switch," Issei went on.

Hiei's look was thoughtful. "Completing some kind of space-bending circuit."

Yabuta did not like being ignored. As Issei spoke with Hiei, Yabuta's face slowly flushed a deeper green. The other demons kept silent, whether because they planned another attack or because Hiei had a bead on them, Issei could not tell, but they looked on with malicious glee.

"I have created," Yabuta continued, raising his voice, "a simple, elegant device---a wormhole which will obliterate the barrier between demon and human worlds."

_Demon world,_ Issei thought. _No wonder we felt sick._ "Like we just said."

Hiei snorted. "Some barriers are there for a reason."

"_You're_ one to talk." Yabuta spoke with pure relish, but Hiei cut him short with a snarling curse. Issei wondered exactly what Yabuta had meant, and why his remark had so bothered Hiei.

Yabuta took a deep breath, clearly intent on pursuing the conversation, but Hiei pointed with his sword---too far away to slice him, but close enough for Yabuta to read his intent. "Enough jabber all around," Hiei threatened.

"Oh, I agree." Placing both hands on the gun, Yabuta raised it, aimed at Issei, and fired.

And then, without having moved, Hiei was simply standing between Issei and Yabuta. In fact, directly in _front_ of Issei, looking up at him with crimson eyes insolent and amused.

Issei blinked in shock. Had he seen such an action in a film, he would have called it a bad special effect, but this was quite real, and barely gave him time to think: _He's crazy---taking the bullet meant for me!_

His back to the gun, and with a single flick of his sword, Hiei deflected the shot. It chipped the wall dangerously close to the Egg.

_Two shots,_ Issei counted. Hiei's stunt had occurred in less than the space between one heartbeat and the next.

And while Hiei's back was turned, the oni, teeth bared in triumph, took advantage of his enormous reach. Before a warning could leave Issei's lips, the oni lunged, sideswiping Hiei with his club. The blow caught Hiei amidships and sent him crashing into the opposite wall. Hiei and oni went down in a whirl of fighting limbs.

Yabuta's aim remained on Issei as he pumped off another round. This time, the bullet whumped into the ceiling.

_Three._

Behind Issei, Operative X stirred, groaned---earning the gunman's attention.

Yabuta jerked the Walther in Issei's direction. "I don't need a point-blank shot to kill a human."

"How courageous," said Issei. "Planning to gun down an unconscious man."

"Maybe just you," simpered Yabuta.

Issei suggested what Yabuta might do with himself.

Hiei and the oni were back on their feet now, with the other demons looking on, biding their time. The oni had earned a bloody slash on his right arm. He swung his club again, but Hiei easily parried the blow.

_Three shots. If Yabuta never loaded the other magazine, that's all he's got._

Yabuta's eyes narrowed with a petulant anger. The gun did not wobble as his green fingers squeezed the trigger, turning them yellow with effort. _Three shots,_ Issei prayed. _Just three._

_Click_.

Empty! Relief flooded Issei. "Can I have it back?"

Seething, Yabuta hurled the gun at Issei's head. Issei ducked. The Walther crashed into the wall behind him, rebounded, but not far enough for Issei to retrieve it.

Yabuta loosed a string of invective, until Hiei slashed at the air with his sword. Yabuta shut up, fast.

"Now that I've got your attention," continued Hiei. "Let me point out that I could've cut you to ribbons any time." His brief skirmish with the oni had earned him another bruise across his jawline; the oni was bled from his left arm as well.

Advancing at a leisurely pace until he was once again commanding the center of the room, Hiei jerked his head at Yabuta. "Bastards like you give me a pain. Always hiding behind some trumped-up 'cause.'"

Yabuta's lips thinned. "I don't see you beating your sword into any ploughshare."

Hiei was unruffled. "If you want to take someone's true measure," he said, "take the measure of his associates."

Issei's gaze fell upon the demons, clustered against the far wall like sullen playground bullies denied their favorite victim.

The minotaur shook his bull's head, spattering the room with more rust-colored blood. The cyclops was unreadable, but the oni's menacing bulk was counterbalanced by the caution in his long brown face. And Four-Arms still bore the look of a second banana chewing on the revelation that he is mere cannon fodder.

"You!" Hiei addressed the pack of demons. "What did he promise you?"

"Money," admitted Four-Arms.

"And has he delivered?" Hiei asked.

Silence.

"Figured as much."

_So that's Hiei's game._ For the first time since this nightmare of a mission had begun, Issei felt a sense of elation. Hiei was attempting to drive a wedge between Yabuta, and his larger, more dangerous henchmen. _Not even henchmen,_ Issei realized; _sacrificial lambs._

And it was working.

"You don't have to listen to Yabuta any more," Hiei continued. "As far as I know you haven't killed any humans, so we'll go easy on you."

The oni lowered his club.

"That runt took my ear," complained the minotaur.

"And cut me good," said the oni, nodding at the dead Eight-Eyes. "Still---small price to pay for not ending up like _him_."

Four-Arms darted nervous glances between his fellows and Yabuta. His face gradually slackened, like lavender icing left too long under hot lights. "Whatever you guys decide."

"Ah. I see." Yabuta favored them with a paper cut of a smile. "This is the point where I gnash my teeth and say, 'Curses! Foiled again!' But it doesn't quite work that way."

Hiei shrugged. "Or I could always kill the lot of you."

Yabuta countered, "And he's offering you what? Imprisonment? Whereas I will set you free to plunder the entire human world."

"If you place such little value on your own lives," cautioned Hiei, "I won't spare you."

There was the sound of demons, thinking.

"Who was it increased your power levels?" Yabuta shrilled. "Myself or that worthless creature with a sword?"

Further thinking took place.

Yabuta raised a sardonic eyebrow. "Sword got your tongue?"

"That can be arranged," said Hiei.

"Well?" Yabuta demanded of his men. "Why do you hesitate?"

Hiei said nothing, as if yielding the floor to Yabuta, who eagerly pressed the advantage. "Look at the size of him," Yabuta continued. "Look at yourselves."

"Size ain't everything," said the oni.

Yabuta gave an almost snakelike hiss of frustration. "Fools," he said. "I am in a company of fools."

"Your favorite word again," Hiei said. "Is that what you think of your men? Or just me?"

The stony silence of the remaining four _youkai_ proved more ominous than their previous grumbling.

If Yabuta prevailed, the world would be overrun with 'monsters even I couldn't handle,' as Hiei had put it.

Having successfully negotiated two surrenders on his own, Issei longed to tip the balance in their favor. But today, that was not his mission. His mission was to get Op-X to safety. Though his entire being resisted flight, Issei silently cheered Hiei on, and watched for the chance to grab his man and escape.

It was only from the corner of his eye that he caught a distortion above the Egg. The Mobius twisted like an agonized worm, and then the very air twisted with it, changing into something that smelt of death.

Even the walls turned from chalky gray to a menacing steel color. A crushing sense of dread overcame Issei, as though all the demons in Hell had shouted his name. Hot and cold and nauseated all at once, he felt his knees buckle.

Hiei gave a single grunt, as though someone had punched him in the stomach; sweat beaded his suddenly-pale skin. The _youkai_ felt it too, the oni covering his eyes, the minotaur slavering, their two companions also reacting to this sea change. Only Yabuta, closest to the Egg, seemed untouched, even blissful.

_It's not real,_ Issei insisted, _the gateway's not fully open yet, these are just feelings. Fight them!_

No good. The harder he fought, the harder fear pressed in.

Maybe struggle was the wrong tactic.

Closing his eyes, Issei stopped resisting. He embraced the sensations of horror, let them wash over him, smash him deep into the maelstrom. For fathomless moments he was trapped by a tumbling wave of icy-hot sickness. His breath was pummeled down his throat by the relentless wave. Air. He needed air!

_Stop fighting_, he reminded himself. After what seemed an eternity, Issei was able to drag in a thick lungful of murk. From then, breathing became easier, even when fear remained, and Issei found a keyhole, a space where he could think.

Not so the others. Issei opened his eyes to shouts of irrational anger as the demons sought a target---any target.

They found one in the person of Hiei, a small and battered figure, with sword alone standing between those monsters and his family: _I'll stop them, even if I die doing it._

Hiei could not stop them all. The dog-reeking cyclops got past him. Issei grabbed the folding chair and slammed it into the creature's single coal-bright eye. The cyclops went down like a sack of wet mud.

Hiei shouted: "Get out of here!"

And in spite of his own evident discomfort, the tough little freelancer redoubled his efforts, his blade a whistling silver flame, his trailing chains adding another tune as he drove the rest of the demons steadily back.

Yabuta was crooning to the Egg, not quite so sleek as before. The odds would never get any better. Issei grabbed Op-X and slung him across his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

Yet even at the last, he hesitated. Hiei battled on, the minotaur and oni going for him from either side, Four-Arms flinging those wretched bungee cords at the swordsman.

_Never leave a pal behind._

It took Hiei's shout to get Issei running for the door: "GO! I'm right behind you!"

Yabuta had other ideas. Abandoning his precious Eden, he rushed past Issei, beating him to the door. With a wild look of defiance, he planted himself in front of the exit.

Issei spoke through gritted teeth. "Move."

"Not so fast." Yabuta favored him with a cold sickly smile. "I won't lose my first human sacrifices so easily."

"And I won't lose to the likes of _you_ so easily," Issei threatened. "Out of my way or I'll put you out."

"Just you try it!"

Op-X gave Issei added weight. All it took was a single body-check to knock Yabuta sprawling to the floor. With no time to savor Yabuta's stunned disbelief, Issei plunged into the hall.

A couple of fluorescent panels flickered in the ceiling, providing enough illumination to find the stairwell. Carrying the semi-conscious Agency man, Issei thundered upstairs.

He kept going. There were no footsteps in pursuit.

Through the darkened factory, glass and debris crackling underfoot, then outside into the bushes Issei ran, stars above, grass below, gasping in lungsful of sweet night air.

Free!

No one followed. Staggering down the cracked driveway, Issei detected no Hiei 'right behind him.' _I don't like this._ Maybe those chains trailing from his ankles had tripped him up.

The hell they had. Hiei was covering Issei's retreat with his life.

Issei stopped to lower Op-X off his shoulders. The taller man scrubbed at his eyes, then spoke for the first time. "How'd I get out here?" His voice, though slurred, was cultured, with a radio-announcer's timbre.

Issei bit back a rising impatience. "Can you stand?"

"Sure." Op-X stood unaided for exactly one second before his knees buckled.

"Sure." Wedging himself under Op-X's arm, Issei all but dragged him toward the spot where he had parked the car.

"They did something to me," Op-X explained.

"Roughed you up?"

"Not just that. Twisted my thoughts. Confused me."

"Mind control?" Issei guessed.

"Something like it. Thought they had me in their pocket. Wanted me to destroy Holy Water, Rosary. Refused. "

They were like drunken salarymen weaving home after last call. The snail's pace was driving Issei crazy.

There was a phone in the car. _Let's hope this guy's up to using it._ "You contact the Agency for back-up," Issei said, chivvying Op-X forward.

Op-X kept going boneless, and Issei struggled against the impulse to dump him and get back into the fight. Hiei had said Op-X was more valuable than gold, to get him out at all costs. But was there no value to Hiei's own life?

"Damn car," muttered Issei, searching the driveway for signs of his vehicle. In the dark, trees and undergrowth obscured the view, but he knew he had parked a quarter-mile from the factory entrance. "I could swear I..."

He spotted the Toyota, positioned exactly where he'd left it. But he took precious time to discern from the inkpot night exactly what he was seeing.

The Agency sedan did not have quite the same profile as before, which may have been due to the fact that it was flattened as though it had gone through a trash compacter.

Fingers of steam threaded their way skyward from the crushed hood. Even opening the door to reach the phone, assuming it wasn't destroyed as well, was out of the question.

The oni. His club. His words to Yabuta: ('I done that outside job you wanted.')

No car, no phone, no way to reach the outside world. Issei let out a groan of frustration.

As if in response, a night bird called, soft and urgent.

Issei pulled himself together. "Stay here," he told Operative X. "I'm going back for my partner."

"Got it," said Op-X, and Issei realized he did not even know the man's name. No time to play nursemaid. Leaning Op-X against the nearest tree, Issei headed back toward the factory.

He had not gone two steps before a white flash, almost like lightning, drew Issei's eye to the turret jutting from the factory's roofline. But this was no transitory autumn storm.

A cacophony of light bloomed from the entire building, clawing its way free of smashed windows like a fire of stars.

Light travels faster than sound.

Half a breath later, the explosion struck a thunderous blow that shook Issei's heart.

"Hiei!" Had he failed? Had Yabuta thrown the switch, causing all Hell to break loose?

No. Despite the bone-rattling blast, there was none of that horrific sense of despair Isse had sensed each time a mere pindot of the demon world leaked into this one. Then what was this?

The Minoru Doll Factory, badly damaged in its first blaze, sufferered its second and final incineration.

Flames licked the walls and cast their orange light upon billowing cauliflowers of smoke. Fully alert now, Op-X gaped at the destruction, took a step forward, then fell. Issei hurried back to assist him.

('If you have to ask,' Hiei had said, 'you don't know the meaning of the Light.' Hiei's secret weapon, his 'court of last resort.')

"Hiei," he whispered, then stood watching the factory burn, his friend and partner still inside.

(To be concluded: With Hiei gone, can Issei complete the mission alone?)

-30-


	6. OR C6: Aftermath

Please see Disclaimer in Chapter 1.

The events in _Idiot Beloved_ take place shortly after the Dark Tournament; _Firebird Sweet_ directly follows that timeline, and you can probably get more out of this sidefic if you read IB and its sequel first.

Title: Operation Rosary C6: Aftermath

Author: JaganshiKenshin

Genre: Action/Adventure, General

Rating: K+/PG-13

Summary: Never leave a man behind---only now, there's no one to go back for.

A/N: _Operation Rosary_ is told through the viewpoint of Hiei's 'partner,' who has just witnessed a tragic event. The burnt-out factory of _Two Shots_ (YYH manga, Vol. 7) was the main setting. Thanks for reading this---I really appreciate your reviews.

"I can't believe he's gone!"

Operation Rosary (C6: Aftermath)

by

Kenshin

Yabuta, resilient to the last, had picked himself up off the floor and run from the room in pursuit of the humans. Kicking off his shoes to ensure silence, he dashed up the stairs two at a time. Once he reached ground level, he sped on, cursing under his breath when shattered glass pierced his stocking feet. It slowed his progress just enough to allow the human with his living cargo to temporarily outpace him, but he would make up the distance. Though his Eden had suffered a setback, at the very least, Yabuta would take the lives of these two as a sacrifice.

0-0-0-0-0

The Minoru Doll Factory burned anew.

As Special Agent Ueda Issei looked on in shock, light bloomed from the turret, a cacophony of light, clawing its way free like searchlights in a prison break, a weight, a pressure, a fire of stars, culminating in an explosion steaming from the building, a bomb-blast of pure white. Smoke roiled in extravagant clouds, black against the navy blue sky. Flames raked the factory's sides.

A single orange spark, a fairy light, detached itself from the blaze and drifted, dreamlike, toward Issei. Was this a dream? The bite of smoke in Issei's throat told him otherwise.

Nor was it Yabuta's Egg triumphant, the opening of Hell's gates. That unique and stifling miasma would spread, even as smoke and fire now claimed greater territories.

"Hiei," he whispered. Though he had distrusted the little freelancer on sight, during the course of their mission Issei had grown to respect Hiei, even like him. Now he felt genuine shock from this loss.

_He's got a wife. That 'gunslinger' he spoke of back then in the car. And kids---he used the word 'family.' I don't envy N, having to make that visit to the house, give them the bad news---even if he died a hero_.

He started toward the factory, as though he could still do something to help.

_Never leave a man behind_.

Close by Issei's side, Op-X toppled to the ground. Torn between two imperatives, he chose the immediate. Turning back to Op-X, he assisted the Agency man, and saw that Op-X was no longer clutching the Rosary. _The things a man notices at a time like this. He must have dropped them along the way._ "Better stay off your feet for now," Issei advised. His voice was steady.

Op-X grunted, nodding. "Dizzy." The movie-idol features shone with sweat. "Those monsters back then---"

"They're gone now," Issei assured him. "The monsters." _And so's Hiei._ Hiei was clearly carrying some explosive device the enemy couldn't detect---something along the lines of a bomb secreted beneath his skin, or even ingested, like a deadly variation of the classic cyanide pill. _That's what he meant by an attack of light. Talk about completing a mission! There'll be nothing left but ashes._

And because of that sacrifice, Issei would live to see Miss Sakamoto Emi again, with her silver hair and violet eyes. But for Hiei and his family, there would be no such happy reunion.

Op-X settled on the ground, the tree supporting his back. Issei still felt the need to return to the factory, make absolutely certain there was no hope---not because it was something 007 would do; it was something Hiei would do.

The reek of burning wire stung his nostrils, needled his eyes. Smoke had spread from the building to engulf the grounds in a thick mantle. There were still enough combustibles inside to burn for a while. All those bodies, melting down to components of fat and bone. And he couldn't even call the Agency, let alone the fire department.

_As soon as Op-X can move_, Issei told himself, _we'll make our way to the main road, thumb a ride, find a phone, file a report. Mission: accomplished. Egg: destroyed. Hiei: lost_.

Men were killed in the line of duty. Issei knew it. Didn't make this particular outcome any easier to take. If he had been faster, stronger, pulled Hiei out----

No. Then Op-X would not be here, breathing the smoky air.

Having made his decision, Issei felt calm and clear-headed. He would proceed, even if he only brought back a body for burial.

"Listen." Issei laid a hand on Op-X's shoulder. The man met his gaze, his blue eyes shedding some of their befuddled look. "I'm going back in now," Issei continued. "As soon as you're able to move, you---"

Op-X's gaze shifted. His eyes widened. "Behind you!"

Issei shot to his feet, spun to face the factory. At the distance of a quarter mile, smoke wreathing its foundation and spreading to encompass the grounds, the building's outline was difficult to see.

Even so, Issei saw clearly the forward motion of a figure emerging from the maelstrom.

This motion was no mere artifact of fire, no illusion of burning debris. The movements were deliberate, slow, filled with purpose. An upright form approached, weaving and staggering.

A worm of cold dread crept up the back of Issei's neck. The battle was not yet over.

Demons were a tough lot. Issei had shot several with no effect, and it took a .38 straight to the chest to stop Eight-Eyes. Obviously, one had survived. Although smoke blurred the approaching figure and denied detail, judging by the intruder's size, it was not the oni or minotaur. Who then---Four-Arms? The cyclops? Yabuta himself?

Issei automatically reached for his gun, even as he realized it was not there.

The intruder drew closer, stumbling twice, but even that might well be a ruse to convince Issei it was blinded by smoke.

Op-X was in no shape to fight, and must be protected. If only one of them made it out alive, it would have to be the particle physicist, whose knowledge could help the Agency detect another attempt at an Egg.

Issei glanced around, seeking a weapon; a rock, a fallen branch, anything!

Still keeping an eye on the demon's slow, steady approach, Issei knelt to rummage through Operative X's pockets.

The agent gave him a puzzled frown. "What the---"

"Holy Water," Issei replied. "Holy Salt. Effective against demons. You had some."

Operative X shook his head. "Not any more."

Rising, Issei made a frantic search of his own pockets---and came across the substitute Rosary.

_No good. Hiei said this one was just a string of beads_.

Issei's chains and shackles! Still attached after all this mayhem. If need arose, and at close quarters---

Backlit by flames, wreathed by smoke, the approaching enemy seemed a bat out of hell. Twenty feet away. Fifteen.

Time to fake it. Thrusting out his arms out as if aiming a gun, Issei shouted, "Freeze, you bastard! I got a bead on you, and at this range I won't miss."

0-0-0-0-0

He could not see in the dark, but a change in the air's quality told Yabuta he was on the threshold of revenge.

The human who worked alongside the little demon had looked at Yabuta's build and thought him weak. He was wrong about that, but the minions had indeed proven so. Not Yabuta. He would use his aura to overwhelm the humans, then strangle them as they lay helpless. Ah, to feel the life choke out of them, to watch then suffer as they were frozen by the power of his _ki!_ There was no gun to get in the way now. A smile stretched his lips.

Nothing could stop him. Yabuta had strength, the resilient strength of a taut wire, the focused strength of a laser powered by a rare crystal, the strength of a demon thirsting for vengeance.

A raging thirst for vengeance that at first parched his lips, then froze them, then cracked them. Yabuta stopped. No! Mere feelings could not account for---!

Then Yabuta at last experienced something far more powerful than himself, at last felt the sear of Holy Fire at his back, as the legendary Sword of the Archangel struck.

0-0-0-0-0

Wobbling and weaving, still the intruder came on.

"One more step and you're dead!" The Rosary clutched in Issei's hand trembled, as if moved by an unearthly wind.

"If this how you greet your allies," said a deep, lazy voice, "I would love to see what you do to your enemies."

The intruder staggered two steps closer; and the breeze shredded smoke, parting it in great black curtains, revealing the face and form of---

"Hiei!"

The freelancer was alive: battered, burnt, bruised, but alive. His clothes were in shreds, but the Rosary---the genuine article---lay around his neck, the pewter figure of Christ on the Crucifix softly gleaming against dark wood.

Hiei stopped close to Issei, his face reddened and soot-smeared, his grin charcoaled. "Shaken _and_ stirred."

"Why, you----" Issei burst out, then forced himself to speak calmly. "Where's your sword?"

"Who knows?"

"Careless of you," said Issei, as Hiei fumbled into his pocket, took out a phone, almost dropped it. The way he groped for its buttons made Issei wonder whether he could see at all. "And where on earth did you get that phone?"

Hiei answered, but his reply was not directed at Issei. He spoke into the phone, the quality of his voice becoming a contented purr. "Woman? I'm at the old abandoned doll factory. Yeah, that one. What? Oh, nothing much, broke people, killed things, the usual."

For a crazy moment Issei was torn between laughter and tears. He settled instead for swallowing hard, which caused him to hack out a lungful of smoke.

"Think you can pick us up?" Hiei went on. "Yeah, starved. Sushi will be fine. Great, and tako yaki. Oh, and can you also pick up some vitamin C and echinacea? No, I haven't gone nuts. It's for a friend. Thanks. See you in a few."

Issei could do nothing more useful than gape.

Hiei fumbled the phone back into a pocket. "I don't like to lose," he explained. And with that, the tough little bastard sank to his knees, then fell senseless to the ground.

0-0-0-0-0

One of Yabuta's final mistakes had been to pocket Hiei's phone himself instead of destroying it. He probably never even realized when Hiei lifted it off him.

And the 'gunslinger' girl arrived shortly afterward: a fire-haired American driving a sleek black Nissan Quest. By then, Hiei had regained consciousness. Issei helped his two comrades into the van's capacious back seat and took the passenger seat.

Paradoxically, the van's luxury set Issei's overused muscles to twanging like bowstrings. But he sank into the van with a sigh of pure relief, blushing to realize that he felt the same sense of comfort as being tucked into bed with a lullaby.

The girl had brought a First-Aid kit, blankets and a handcuff key. Maybe she was psychic. Maybe she was a genius. Or maybe she was just used to mopping up after Hiei. In any case, Issei was never so grateful to be free. They had been cleaned and bandaged, the Agency had been contacted, and the world was regaining some sense of order and justice.

Hiei had apparently also regained much of his sight, judging by the speed with which he tore into the box of tuna rolls.

Pulling away from the factory, the girl flicked Hiei a glance in the rearview mirror. "Can you see yet?"

Hiei snorted. "The day I need vision to be able to eat, you can shoot me."

"I'll mark it on my calendar," she assured him.

Issei, too, glanced into the rearview mirror. Hiei grudgingly shared some tuna rolls and tako yaki with the much-recovered Op-X, who wielded his chopsticks with great panache. "I don't believe I ever got your name," mused Issei.

"Op-X." The agent spoke with a mouthful of octopus dumpling.

Issei was too keyed up to eat, but he did gulp a handful of the supplements the girl had brought, chasing them with bottled water. Later, hunger and weariness, and likely the shakes, would hit, and hard. For now, he was simply running on vapors.

He sat in front with the girl---Shayla Kidd. She wore a gray velour jogging suit which, on her, managed to look like evening wear. After a few courtesies, he felt comfortable enough to bemoan the loss of his Walther PPK.

"A sweet little protector," she agreed. "But way too much trigger pull for the likes of me." Issei could see that. She was little, smaller even than Hiei.

"Not to mention the snappy recoil," said Issei, warming to the task.

"Nothing so manly on my Beretta Cheetah," she said.

"_That_ mouse gun?" he scoffed.

She shrugged, refusing to be baited. "I'm kind of attached to it. The Agency will issue you a new sidearm, right?"

"Won't be the same," he lamented. "You get used to a particular piece, all its quirks."

"I hear you, brother."

The night sped by. Hiei was demolishing the last piece of tuna roll and looking---or sniffing---for more. He fumbled opened a carton of beef curry, opting for a plastic spoon instead of chopsticks.

Issei watched in amazement. "You always chow down like this? Or are you just trying to recover from that beating?"

Shayla Kidd lifted an eyebrow. "Beating?"

"He's delusional." Hiei spooned more curry. "Smoke inhalation."

"You should take some of my echinacea and C," advised Issei.

"Yeah," said Hiei. "That'll happen."

"Don't worry," the girl told Issei. "If he bolts it too fast he'll just puke it up again."

Though he said nothing, Issei's eyes were starting to bulge.

"Like a cat with a hairball," she elaborated.

"How do you think I keep my girlish figure?" said Hiei.

"Don't let him fool you." Shayla Kidd snorted. "He saves it for later."

Issei felt as though he had wandered into some surreal comedy, the kind they only show on late-night TV.

"Is there any more curry?" inquired Op-X. Wordlessly Hiei handed him another carton and another plastic spoon, his own spoon---and fingers--- already stained golden yellow.

"This car will need serious detailing," the girl said, sniffing. "What with the blood and the smoke and the curry."

Issei frowned. Again he experienced that odd _deja vu_: why did Hiei look familiar? He knew for a fact that until this mission they had never met.

Late-night TV. Curry. "Got it!" he crowed. "Now I remember you!"

"You made me drop my food," Hiei griped.

"Good thing this is an Agency car," said Shayla Kidd.

"It's because you're dressed differently," Issei said, with a sense of relief.

"Thanks for noticing."

"No, I mean, where I've seen you before. All along I thought I was going nuts, but---"

"I'm not saying a thing."

"It was an ad on TV," Issei crowed. "You wore this yellow track suit and you were capering around inside this huge---"

"Saucepan," supplied the girl, flashing Issei a movie-star smile. "Hiei played the part of Nishimura Beef Curry: 'The curry so good it jumps into your mouth.'"

"From the pan to your plate in two minutes," sang Op-X.

Issei nodded enthusiastically. "Hard to equate that dumb ad with the one-man wrecking crew here."

"Thanks." Hiei daubed his fingers with paper napkins and stuffed the crumpled napkins into the empty curry container.

"Boy, that really was an idiotic ad," Issei went on.

"Tell me about it," said Op-X. "And that stupid jingle? I still can't get it out of my head."

"I don't write the damn things," said Hiei.

"Good product, though," Issei soothed.

"Let's talk guns instead," suggested Shayla Kidd.

And as the darkened landscape slid past them, Issei returned to the subject of his lost Walther PPK, and all the rest of the way to the Agency the girl happily commiserated.

She also came inside the building with them and waited in the outer office during their initial debriefing.

At first, all three men were debriefed together. Though he could sing the curry jingle without a hitch, Op-X still had difficulty remembering his name.

Later, a courier arrived to escort Issei into a separate room, and when Issei was finished with the private debriefing, both Hiei and his gunslinger had gone.

0-0-0-0-0

"We would have liked to get our hands on X the Unknown," said N. Issei thought that the chief addressed Hiei as though gently chiding a favorite nephew who'd accidentally lobbed a baseball through a neighbor's window in foiling a burglary.

It was the morning after, a bright clear day. The three of them sat in N's office, a steaming pot of green tea on a low table before them. Thanks to timely doses of C, B-complex, arnica and more, Issei's bruises and scrapes had faded into a tolerable background ache. Hiei, on the other hand, looked as though he had never been touched, much less beaten unconscious and burnt to a crisp.

Issei marveled at Hiei's resiliency. Maybe he took supplements on the sly.

"It would have helped us to examine the device ourselves," continued N, pouring tea all around.

Hiei shrugged. "It's the best I could do with what I had." Today, he looked a different man altogether, sleek and subdued in a charcoal-gray suit shot with threads of red, gold, and green, the same colors echoed in his tie. But he still wore the white headband, and the slightly mocking gleam in his crimson eyes.

Issei felt like a new man himself.

This was in part due to Miss Sakamoto's revamped attitude toward him; on Issei's way to N's office, the cool and collected blonde debriefed him extensively about his favorite brands of supplements. And when Issei suggested they conduct the rest of the debriefing elsewhere, she readily agreed to meet him at the Silver Moon cafe.

But the change was also due to Issei pinning down what had so disturbed him about Eight-Eyes.

The truth had struck him last night, after an hour's fruitless attempt at sleep. The uneasy dichotomy of spider eyes in a human face simply underscored the folly of merging the demon world into the human one.

He wondered why it had taken so long to figure out. Possibly he'd been looking for a more complex reason. Possibly he'd been preoccupied with demons who were trying to kill him.

Issei finished his tea. It had a pleasant undertaste of roasted barley, and he was still a bit dehydrated.

He had 'adopted' the Rosary Hiei shoved into his pocket back down in the dungeon. If nothing else, it was a souvenir, a reminder of this most unusual mission.

"Well." With a sigh of resignation, N poured another round of tea. "At least Egg The Unknown is no longer in enemy hands."

"It's no longer in anyone's hands," Hiei reminded him.

That same night, a forensics team had returned to the factory. They had found nothing to recover, no Walther PPK, no remains of demons, no trace of the Egg, nothing but a circle of black glass encompassing much of what had been the basement.

"Some Holy Salt might have been spilled on the device," was Hiei's only explanation. "Or something. By accident."

But Issei knew better: Hiei had employed his 'court of last resort,' whatever weapon or attack it was, and despite all odds, managed to live through it.

"It's also good to hear that Operative X is beginning to regain his memory," Issei said. "Though who would have guessed Op-X is his legal name?"

"The important thing is," said Hiei, "I got my Rosary back."

Both Issei and N regarded him in silence, unsure whether he was entirely joking.

"And some curry," Hiei added, getting to his feet. He gave Issei a half-humorous, half-insolent glint. "Not a bad job you did back there. We'll make a delinquent of you yet."

"Yeah," said Issei. "That'll happen."

Hiei turned to N. "Next time you need a babysitter for this guy..." He nodded in Issei's direction. "Call someone else." And he left N's office with as little ceremony as before.

Sipping tea, Issei grinned at the freelancer's retreating back. "Arrogant jerk," he said fondly.

"Congratulations." N spoke with a dry humor. "I think Hiei's just admitted you to his inner circle."

"I doubt it. That runt's still a mystery to me."

"That 'runt,' as you put it, is probably the most-decorated person you are ever likely to meet."

"I beg your pardon?"

"He has more orders of merit than you have vitamins."

"You're joking."

"In addition to the Order of the Golden Kite, and the Order of the Rising Sun, and the Order of the Sacred Treasure---"

_"What?"_

N raised an eyebrow. "You'll spill your tea."

Issei sank back into his chair. "I need to sit down."

"I believe he was recently awarded the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum as well."

Issei shot to his feet again. "The what?"

N chuckled. "Don't you read your history? The Supreme Order of the---"

"I know what that is!" Considered Japan's highest honor, the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum was normally reserved for the Emperor, or perhaps foreign heads of state.

"The Grand Cordon, if I'm not mistaken," N continued, ignoring Issei's third outburst. "Only three living people have been awarded that one."

Issei shook his head in wonder. "Hiei never mentioned it."

"He never does. I'm beginning to think it embarrasses him."

"Then why did he pick such a public 'cover?'"

"He didn't---it picked him. Long story."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"And to think you had reservations about him."

"Who, me? That arrogant little jerk can try to get me killed any time he likes."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that." Rising from the table, N strolled to the window and admired the October sky, presenting Issei with his broad, stolid back. "And on a more serious note..." He trailed off, his hands folded. "Now that you know about the existence of demons..."

_This is it. Prepare to be kicked downstairs, if not terminated altogether with your memory erased._ Determined to face the worst on his feet, he rose one more time.

N turned from the window at last and regarded Issei. One thing about the district chief---he was no coward. He always fed you the bad news head-on.

A bead of sweat slid down Issei's back as N strolled to the sofa and sat. He took his time pouring himself another cup of tea. Taking a sip, he looked up at Issei. Issei's heart sank. "And given the way you handled yourself," N continued, setting down his cup, "you leave us no recourse... but to kick you upstairs."

Issei blinked. Blinked again. "But, Sir," he pleaded, though at this point he was unsure whose cause he was pleading and why, "You read the debriefing. I screwed up right and left!"

"Yes. However, look at it this way---you got thrown into the deep end and swam with the best of them. You also showed an uncanny ability to think on your feet, to adapt and improvise in the teeth of tremendous odds."

"I... do you mean to say... I'm being promoted?"

The unflappable N nodded.

"Even without retrieving the Egg?"

"Even without."

_Hiei was right! This mission was a test._ The reality of Issei's promotion sank in, and he gave the older man a formal bow. "Thank you, Sir. I am most unworthy of this honor, but I will strive to live up to your trust."

N dismissed his concerns with an airy wave. "Besides," he added, "We won."

"This time," said a chastened Issei.

"As will also be the case next time." N favored him with a penetrating stare. "You appear to have a bit of a sixth sense regarding _youkai_. It can be trained."

"And maybe," Issei said, "instead of that James Bond gun, I should be packing more firepower." _Something along the lines of a Glock 18,_ Issei thought, warming to the idea of the sleek machine pistol's 33 rounds per magazine.

"Of course," said an unruffled N. "In fact, I approve. But as you've discovered, a gun could be turned against you."

Issei recalled the Walther PPK in Yabuta's hands. A flush warmed his face.

"Now, a Rosary," N continued, "can not. And since demons may again come under your jurisdiction..." Lifting his shoulders, he trailed off.

Issei finished the thought. Wondering whether it would make him as strong as Hiei, he drew the 'souvenir' from his pocket and studied its wooden beads. "I'd better get this one blessed as soon as possible."

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(A/N: This concludes _Operation Rosary_. Thanks for reading it, as irregular as my updates have been, and please review! Now, scroll down for another short excerpt from the forthcoming Kaito-centric fic, _The Book of Cat With Moon_.)

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Though it was past midnight, Kaitou Yuu had another column to put to bed.

The column, lamenting the sorry state of contemporary television programming, was all but finished, and just wanted a light touch of editing before Kaitou could call it quits. Now would be an excellent time to take a break, stretch his legs, and stroll around the block for some coffee.

It had rained earlier, and the air still held onto a scent of flint, and a knife-edge of distant thunder. The sidewalks glistened with flecks of color stolen from neon signs. Pulling up the collar of his overcoat, Kaitou headed for the coffee shop.

"You're dead," said a voice.

Kaitou froze.

The sepulchral pronouncement had startled him, but not nearly so much as the simultaneous tap on his shoulder.

"Who's there?" No one behind him.

"This way, dolt."

On the rain-slicked sidewalk, appearing like Satan's favorite handmaiden, stood Hiei, arms crossed, scowling.

He had come upon Kaitou so suddenly, soundlessly, yes, supernaturally, that Kaitou never realized it until the fire demon was standing before him and Kaitou's heart was slamming against his ribs. "You can't kill me!" He gave a thin protest. "Demons aren't allowed---"

"I have a license to kill."

Kaitou's blood turned to ice. "Like James B-bond?"

"Sort of, but less discriminating." Hiei bared his teeth. It was not a smile. Kaitou took a step back, but there was no escape.

(From _The Book of Cat With Moon:_ to be continued---eventually)

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